Rosine Mftego Mbakam
2021Les Prières de Delphine
Rosine Mftego Mbakam
This film is the portrait of Delphine, a young Cameroonian girl who, after the death of her mother and the abandonment of her father’s parental responsibilities, was raped at the age of 13. She sinks into prostitution to support herself and her daughter. She ends up marrying a Belgian man who is three times her age, hoping to find a better life in Europe for her and her daughter. Seven years later, the European dream has faded and her situation has only gotten worse.Delphine, like others, is part of this generation of young African women crushed by our patriarchal societies and left with this Western sexual colonization as the only means of survival. Through her courage and strength, Delphine exposes these patterns of domination that continue to lock up African women.
Delphine’s Prayers
Prisme
Eléonore Yameogo, An van. Dienderen
For Prism, Belgian filmmaker An van. Dienderen invited Brussels-based Rosine Mbakam from Cameroon and Paris-based Eléonore Yameogo from Burkina Faso to work together on a film in which the differences in their skin color serves as a departure to explore their experiences with the biased limitations of the medium. Photographic media are technologically and ideologically biased, favoring Caucasian skin. Such white-centricity means that the photographic media assume, privilege and construct whiteness.
Prism
Chez Jolie Coiffure
Rosine Mftego Mbakam
Sabine
Rosine Mbakam is invited to step in Sabine’s small hairdresser’s because it is dangerous in the street. She accepts and pushes in with her camera. Sabine’s stories and the customers’ joys, worries, problems and fears bring depth and life into the premises. At times, it feels like the entire African quarter of Brussels had squeezed in. Laughter abounds, anecdotes and life stories elicit emotions, and a male visitor brings a touch of flirt into the salon.
Chez Jolie Coiffure
Tu Seras Mon Allié
Rosine Mftego Mbakam
Bwanga Pilipili, Gaël Maleux
In this gripping short drama, Domé, a young woman from Gabon who speaks flawless French, is apprehended at the airport on her way into Belgium. She says she’s a French citizen—a businesswoman on her way to meet with suppliers. Border control agents say she’s lying and traveling with a stolen passport. Shut in a bare interrogation chamber, Domé faces dehumanizing treatment from accusers, firmly answering the same questions over and over. While left on her own, she can hear cries coming from the next room. Trying to stave off deportation, Domé asks to use the bathroom. There, she carries out a traditional ritual—one which could cost her her life, or give her a chance at a new one. YOU WILL BE MY ALLY is an early work of Rosine Mbakam’s that already shows the themes which have come to inform the award-winning filmmaker’s career.
You Will Be My Ally
Cinetracts '20
Želimir Žilnik, Sheilah ReStack
A global portrait documenting the year's events, Cinetracts '20 features the work of an international lineup of 20 filmmakers. Capturing the zeitgeist in their own backyard, the artists' short films are the culmination of a year-long residency project.
Cinetracts '20