SCREENING OF DIEUDO HAMADI’S KINSHASA MAKAMBO (Democratic Republic of the Congo)
FRIDAY FEBRUARY 14
AS PART OF THE TOURNEES FILM FESTIVAL OF FRENCH, FRENCH-SPEAKING AND FRENCH-PRODUCED FILMS ON CAMPUS.
JANUARY 31-MARCH 3, 2020
The screenings take place in the Bijou Auditorium as part of “Film Today” and “Film History”. They are free and open to the entire Institute.
Leading Congolese documentary filmmaker Dieudo Hamadi plunges the viewer into the heart of a non-violent revolutionary movement with this gripping portrait of three young men dedicated to removing President Joseph Kabila from power. The film opens in the fall of 2017, one year after impending presidential elections were delayed until early 2018, long after Joseph Kabila's term as President of the Democratic Republic of Congo was supposed to elapse. On the streets of Kinshasa, hundreds of young men face the military to demand Kabila’s ouster, often at the risk of their lives. We encounter three young activists at pivotal moments in their lives: Christian is on the streets with the Defensive Forces Youth group organizing demonstrations; Ben is a political exile who has returned to Congo for the electoral fight; and Jean-Marie is released from prison only to resume the struggle, despite the threat of repeated arrest and torture. The film alternates between heart-stopping sequences of mass demonstrations and private conversations and small meetings in which the hopes, strategies, and conflicts of Congo's young idealists are laid bare. Kinshasa Makambo is that rare film that is on the front lines as history happens, capturing the reality of an unresolved political crisis.
“Having world premiered at the Berlinale...Dieudo Hamadi’s extraordinary Kinshasa Makambo
has a shot at becoming one of the major political documentaries of 2018. ”
— Filmmaker Magazine