Film Program at The Sorbonne

 

Documentaries

Atalaku (2013)

July 9th, 18:00 – 19:00. Sorbonne, S_Gestion

Dieudo Hamadi
RDC, France/DRC, France – 60 min.
Mutotu Productions. Français
The 2011 presidential election in DRC was the second free election since the country’s founding in 1960. In this context, Gaylor, a pastor who, like many Kinois, has not a centime to his name, becomes an atalaku (lingala for “crier/praise singer”). He strikes a deal with the politician who is paying the most and locates musicians to compose his campaign song. This film won the Joris Ivens prize at Cinéma du Réel in 2013.

Congo, un médecin pour sauver les femmes (2014)

July 9th, 16:00 – 17:30. Sorbonne, S_Gestion

Angèle Diabang
Sénégal – 52 min.
Karoninka-Roches Noires Productions. Français
Awarded the Sakharov Prize in 2014, Congolese Dr Denis Mukwege has been operating on women survivors of sexual violence in the hospital he founded in the South-Kivu province for fifteen years. The film, which gives the doctor, the nurses and their patients a voice, is a cry to the world.

Miners Shot Down (2014)

July 10th, 14:00 – 15:30. Sorbonne, S_Gestion

Rehad Desai
South Africa/Afrique du Sud – 85 min.
Uhuru Productions. English
In August 2012, mine workers in one of South Africa’s biggest platinum mines began a wildcat strike for better wages. Six days into the strike, the police used live ammunition to brutally suppress the strike, killing 34 and injuring many more. The police insisted that they shot in selfdefence. Available images suggest otherwise.

Our Beloved Sudan (2012)

July 8th, 16:00 – 17:30. Sorbonne, S_Gestion

Taghreed Elsanhouri
Sudan/Soudan – 92 min.
Autoproduit par la réalisatrice. English
Our Beloved Sudan tells the story of the Sudanese nation counting down to a self-determination referendum on whether the country remains united or breaks apart. The film takes the historical trajectory of the nation from birth in 1956 to its partition in 2011, interlacing a public and a private story. It invites key political figures to reflexively engage with Sudan’s history, while observing an ordinary, mixed-race family caught across the divides of a big historical moment as its members try to make sense of the partition and live through it.
In the presence of the film director.

Une feuille dans le vent (2013)

July 10th, 16:00 – 17:30. Sorbonne, S_Gestion

Jean-Marie Teno
Cameroun – 55 min.
Films du Raphia. Français
In this film, Jean-Marie Teno pursues his reflection on the aftermath of colonialism, both public and private, in his country. In 2004, the filmmaker meets Ernestine Ouandié, the daughter of Ernest Ouandié, a major figure in the 1950s and 60s UPC armed opposition to Ahmadou Ahidjo, Cameroon’s first president, who came to power thanks to the French colonial regime. The young woman recounts her dramatic life story: fatherless and rejected by her mother, and haunted by her failure to discover the truth about her father’s assassination in 1971 by the Cameroonian state.
In the presence of the film director

 

Films by scholars

Cemetary State (2010)

July 9th, 14:00 – 15:30. Sorbonne, S_Lefebvre

Filip De Boeck
RDC/DRC – 72 min.
FilmNatie BVBA. English/Français
The film follows a group of grave-diggers in the cemetery of Kintambo (Kinshasa), where mourning rituals and funerals have become moments of upheaval and contest of social and political orders.
In the presence of the film director

Conakry Kas (2004)

July 10th, 9:00 – 10:30. Sorbonne, S_Lefebvre

Manthia Diawara
Guinée/Guinea – 53 min.
Yelema Production. English/Français
Do we remember the urban heroes of the sixties, who propelled the country on the international political and artistic scene? How is the city of Conakry seeking to emerge, today, as a modern urban space?

FESMAN (2010)

July 8th, 14:00 – 15:30. Sorbonne, S_Lefebvre

Christine Douxami et Philippe Degaille
Sénégal – 109 min.
CEAF-IRD-Captures Production. Français
This documentary considers ways in which the Negritude and African Renaissance movements were revisited by artists present in Dakar in 2010 for the third edition of the Festival mondial des arts nègres (FESMAN).
In the presence of the film director.

Market Imaginary (2012)

July 8th, 17:30 – 19:00. Sorbonne, S_Lefebvre

Joanna Grabski
Sénégal – 53 minutes
Indiana University Press. Wolof/Français/English
This film focuses on Dakar’s largest market for second-hand goods, Marché Colobane. Key subjects
are present-day speculation, the history of the market and surrounding neighborhood, and processes
of creativity and reinvention developed by local artists.
In the presence of the film director