Black

A 15-year-old girl must make a brutal choice between loyalty and love when she falls for a Moroccan boy from a rival black gang, in this pulse-pounding crime-drama played out amidst the milieu of Brussels’ gang culture.

When Mavela (Martha Canga Antonio), a teenage girl with ties to Brussels' Black Bronx gang, sets eyes upon the charismatic Marwan (Aboubakr Bensaihi), a member of rival Moroccan gang the 1080’s, at a police station, they are both keenly aware of the consequences of getting involved with someone from outside their respective circles. But where at first they manage to forgo their mutual attraction to one another, it’s a temptation they can only resist for so long. Any efforts they make however to imagine a different life for themselves together is nipped brutally in the bud when a terrifying incident reminds Mavela exactly where she belongs — and, more precisely, to whom. What’s made abundantly clear is that in order to break free, Mavela and Marwan will have to betray the very loyalties on which their gangs are founded - and do so fully in the knowledge of the dangers that lie ahead for them if they do.

Recently compared to the power and immediacy of La Haine in revealing the tensions in inner-city multi-cultural life in contemporary European cities, viewers should be warned that Black contains disturbing images of sexual violence which some may find distressing and problematic. Moving at an electrifying pace and with a gritty realism reminiscent of gangster epics like City of God as it ricochets from moments of extreme tenderness to scenes of extreme violence, this is a full-on, no-holds-barred tragedy of Shakespearian proportions that will undoubtedly resonate long after this particular curtain has fallen.

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