Bram Van Paesschen

Pale peko bantu mambo ayikosake

Bram Van Paesschen

In this documentary, filmmaker Bram Van Paesschen takes us to Katanga province, in the south of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Back in the days of Belgian colonial rule, Katanga was a prosperous mining area. It is now a devastated ruin; its vast industrial ghost sites and rusting machinery are now nothing more than a lasting reminder of its glory days... glorious for the whites.

Empire of Dust

Bram Van Paesschen

Lao Yang

Lao Yang is head of logistics of the group. He is responsible for the equipment, building materials and food (mainly chickens) to arrive in the isolated Chinese prefab camp. The Congolese government was supposed to deliver these things but so far the team hasn't received anything. With Eddy (a Congolese man who speaks Mandarin fluently) as an intermediate, Lao Yang is forced to leave the camp and deal with local Congolese entrepreneurs, because without the construction materials the road works will cease. What follows is an endless, harsh, but absurdly funny roller coaster of negotiations and misunderstandings, as Lao Yang learns about the Congolese way of making deals.

I'm New Here

Bram Van Paesschen

Guangzhou, China. A building erected in the communist style of the eighties: Tian Xiu. Since many years this is the Eldorado for African migrants who massively try their luck in this city. 'I'm New Here' sketches a unique look behind the scenes of a new economic relationship between the African continent and the superpower China through some of the people that populate Tian Xiu.