Chez Jolie Coiffure

DIRECTOR(S): Rosine Mbakam   COUNTRY: Belgium   YEAR: 2018   LANGUAGES: French   SUBTITLES: German, English   RUNNING TIME: 70 min

SCREENINGS
Saturday, 05.10., 9.45 pm, kinoeins
Sunday, 06.10., 3.15 pm, kommkino, Q&A with Rosine Mbakam

SECTION: International Competition

Sabine runs a hair salon in the middle of Matongé, a largely African district in Brussels. Her long working days are filled with talk about the latest styles and gossip, as well as the advice that Sabine gives willingly, without always being asked. Rosine Mbakam’s camera is right there, barely leaving the salon, and filming Sabine as she braids and braids and braids.

Using the numerous mirrors of the salon, Mbakam creates a puzzle with each take that transforms the small space and captures a microcosm of the African diaspora. The documentary takes on the slow-paced casual tempo of the salon. The exterior world only enters via the soundtrack and in the form of an offal salesman named Mr Gizzard who keeps coming. The windows create a natural, semi-permeable barrier between those in the salon and passers-by and members of the white majority who come to gawk. Like most of her customers, Sabine does not have official documents, so there is a constant sense of danger and risk of raids. But Jolie Coiffure is a home away from home, at least for a few hours every day.

ROSINE MBAKAM

Rosine Mfetgo Mbakam grew up in Cameroon. In 2007 she left Cameroon and enrolled in Brussels for a training course at INSAS. Her diploma in hand, she finished her first short film You Will be My Ally and co-realized a portrait of the Congolese artist Freddy Tsimba Mavambu with Mirko Popovitch for the ASBL AFRICALIA. In 2014, she founded Tandor Productions with Geoffroy Cernaix and directed The Two Faces of a Bamileke Woman, her first documentary released on screen in 2017.

FILMOGRAPHY

SCRIPT:    PRODUCER: Geoffroy Cernaix, Rosine Mbakam   CAMERA: Rosine Mbakam   EDITOR: Geoffroy Cernaix   MUSIC:    CAST:

WEBSITE
http://tandorproductions.com

PRODUCTION: Tândor productions    WORLD SALES: Thierry Detaille, Visible Film   GERMAN DISTRIBUTOR: