Atlantiques (Mati Diop, 2010)

Less diluted by its existence as an "avant garde" piece than by its low production values. A group of black men sit around a camp fire at night, mourning the unlucky fate of having to choose between emigrating to Europe to look for work, or staying in Senegal where work is scarce. The stylistic choice emphasizes the actors' dark skin, as they seem to almost barely exist in the small, flickering fire light. The only problem is its status as being shot on exceptionally cheap digital, giving the night scene an ugly, pixelated and unreal quality. If the same scenes had been shot on film (or, at least, HD video) the actors would've blended more seamlessly into the background, enhancing the power of the commentary of the African plight as something invisible and unspoken among the Western (as represented by cinema) world. It's actually a pretty brilliant visual metaphor only marred by the lack of visual quality -- strange, since the reported budget was 30k Euros. What'd he spend it on?