Tournées Film Festival: Kinshasa Makambo

Thursday / February 20, 2020 / 7 p.m.
Landis Cinema, Buck Hall

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.

Free for all! No ticket required.

The Tournées Festival is made possible by the FACE Foundation, Africana Studies, the Departments of Foreign Languages & Literatures, Film & Media Studies, and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and the International Student Association.