Tabu
by Nelson Makengo
DR CONGO - 2016 - 16 Minutes
synopsis
Tabu, a traveling salesman of aphrodisiacs, travels through Kinshasa to sell his goods. Journey into the world of roots and powders, to meet colorful men who seek to sublimate themselves at any cost.
Director
If he shoots alone, the author belongs to a contemporary Congolese scene which questions itself about spaces, memory and history. He studied at the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Kinshasa, from which he graduated in 2015, the year of the disappearance of his mentor, Kiripi Katembo Siku, a talented photographer swept away by neuro-malaria. He is the author of a series called “Urban Theater”, in which he places toys borrowed from his nephew, superhero figurines, in the environment of his city. “I felt resistance, people were like, 'Do you want to photograph our dirt?' How to photograph without the Kinshasa feeling betrayed, attacked? I once tried the staging of figurines. The people themselves came to stage what I wanted to photograph, it became a game ”. His references are primarily literary and Congolese: he quotes Sinzo Aanza, Jean Bofane and Fiston Mwanza Mujila with his book Tram 83, in which he sees an art of "editing" which reminds him of Russian filmmakers of the Soviet period, such as Dziga Vertov or Sergeï Eisenstein.
PLUG
PRODUCTION
Clarimage movies
DIFFUSION
Not specified
PARTICIPATION
Not specified
Rewards
In 2018: International Short Film Festival - Clermont-Ferrand (France) - Regards d'Afrique