THE OPINION OF THE “WORLD” – “TO SEE”
Since 2013, “Quartiers lointains” has been offering a traveling program of award-winning short films at major festivals, aimed at bringing out new filmmakers from the African continent or from its diaspora. Entitled Afrofuturisk, the sixth “season” is intended to be prospective, questioning the status of the image in the XXIe century. At the initiative of the distributor Claire Diao (Sudu Connexion), member of the selection committee of the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight, and of the Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival, five films will be released in theaters this 1er September.
Some twist the codes of genre film, such as this crossing of a deserted Morocco, What if the beasts die, by Sofia Alaoui. Others question the making of the work or the alienation of ultra-connected individuals. In the hilarious fiction We Need Prayers: This One Went to Market, by Kenyan Jim Chuchu, a performer stages herself in a self-portrait, her head covered with electrical outlets, embroidering an emancipatory, identity-based story, capable of “Please white people” and capture the attention of the contemporary international scene. It was necessary to dare, the bet is held and the tasty dialogues between the artist who delivers and the one who photographs it, more and more flabbergasted by what she hears.
Visual flood
Flashy wigs Hello rain, by Nigerian CJ Obasi, are also worth a detour, for the special effects and visual inventiveness of its author. A witch scientist makes wigs that can bestow supernatural powers on her girlfriends. Everything is now accessible to them, until the day when these women become uncontrollable and dangerous, and the film turns into a tangy thriller. It is still heads and hair that we discover at the hairdressing salon of Zombies, by filmmaker and musician Bolaji (Democratic Republic of the Congo). Where we question the image of oneself, the capillary nature (curly or not), the artifice, the stake of the selfie and the quasi-carnal relationship that we have with the telephone and social networks. In this visual deluge populated by strange creatures – futuristic clubbing, etc. – one image remains, very Godardian, that of a young woman strolling through the streets of Kinshasa, swapping her red dress for jeans and a T-shirt on which is written: “Left the group”. But what is she going to do? She doesn’t know what to do …
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