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The International Documentary Festival in Biarritz (Fipadoc) offers a rare immersion in a district of the Congolese capital. In "Kinshasa Beta Mbonda", former thugs are transformed into convinced and convincing percussionists. Under the gaze of Belgian filmmaker Marie-Françoise Plissart, the life of the repentant "Kulunas" turns into music. Interview.
RFI: Kinshasa Beta Mbonda is a very special dive in the popular district of Barumbu. What made you want to make this film ?
Marie-Françoise Plissart : I have always dreamed of improvising and creating something with people who invent. On the other hand, I always liked to go to Kinshasa. It is the place where strong and very different energies were able to come together: the energy of these musicians, these former bandits, inventing music and games, and then myself, coming from Belgium, from Brussels. Suddenly there is this mix: them and me. It was very exciting, and also very difficult.
How did you find these former bandits who became musicians ?
A friend knew them as musicians, but also their history. Since he had read my books on Kinshasa, he thought I was the right person for that. At the beginning, I was very scared, because it is difficult to make a film. We took a long time to get to know each other. And all this time allowed to have the film as it is: with a great relationship of trust between them and me.
What triggered these former thugs to stop delinquency and become percussionists ?
One of the two masters we see in the film saw them leaving in banditry. He persuaded them to make music. First by going in their direction by offering them to drink and smoke. Then, they wanted to become musicians by seeing the master who traveled a lot. There was an osmosis. And perhaps the master also had this desire to transmit his knowledge. He knew all the music of the country, he had looked for rhythms in the villages, etc. He wanted to pass it all on. So there was an exchange of desire.
Kinshasa is known to be a city that is constantly changing and where it is very difficult to shoot a film. How did you manage to make such posed and poetic plans ?
It is also a matter of time. At the beginning, in the 2000s, when I went there, it annoyed me terribly. Today I understand. And then I filmed them, stars. So the other people around didn't feel like they were being filmed. Of course, I was immediately arrested by the police. I was not surprised. With the sound engineer, I immediately said to him: “ You are going to read the letter of authorization for the shooting. We're going to film you. The police were happy to be filmed. This reversed the situation. Each time when I met this policeman, whom I had filmed, without finally showing him in the film, he was always delighted to see us ... And I always stayed in the same neighborhood. The first day, I had boos… Then people got used to it. It was like I was transparent.
In the film, the protagonists sing Kinshasa like a city full of problems and pains. But under the gaze of your camera, poverty turns into beauty, the steps into choreography, the gestures of everyday life into music. Cowhide, capsules, a washing machine, everything turns into rhythm. What images of Kinshasa did you have in your head before shooting ?
I don't want to film misery at all. It doesn't interest me at all. Politics interests me. In their word, in what they say, everything is a big complaint. They talk about the country's catastrophe. I am the ones who interest me. They are beautiful, beautiful like everything. They are important people, I admire them and I really enjoyed filming them.
Your camera is always in the right place, in the right place. You say yourself that you have reconstructed certain scenes and paid the musicians for the film. Where do you think the line is between a documentary and a fiction ?
What comes to me right away is lightness. I do the production and the camera and I have a sound engineer. We're just two people. And a Congolese assistant. So, I have a tremendous lightness. When we want to do something, we do it - apart from the prohibitions ... In Kinshasa, normally, everything is impossible, but everything is possible, since they can improvise, we try, we go in the truck ... Finally, they let you do whatever you want. Just talk to everyone. I also felt a freedom of creation on their part. In a minute, they improvise something.
Have the musicians seen the film ?
They saw it, it was very important. It was the first thing to do. They were delighted. The producer should also have come for the screening, but, unfortunately, she was stopped at the border for administrative reasons. I asked everyone: what is your favorite moment in the film? Many spoke of the scene in the cemetery when they mourned their deaths. And among the ten that we see on the screen, there is one who has already died, just after the shooting. In Kinshasa, we die a lot. Life expectancy is 46 years.
In Kinshasa, after being a member of the " Kulunas ", a violent gang, can you get rid of your bad reputation by becoming a musician?
I think the look on them has really changed. I felt it was so extraordinary to make a film that their past was put aside.
At one point in the film, a group of young children imitate their elders by improvising a kind of " baby-groove ". Kinshasa Beta Mbonda , is it also a film on transmission ?
Absolutely, and this scene, I took it in flight. I was not the one who asked the children to do this. It was a gift. It's really a film about transmission. It is also their strength, generosity. They really want to do it all. They all talk about the transmission, it's their engine.
You have known Kinshasa for twenty years. How has this group of musicians changed your image of Kinshasa ?
She became warmer. When I go to Kinshasa, it is as if I find my brothers. This is what changed in my heart. But, for the city, it continues to deteriorate. When I see my photos made in 2000, there were almost no cars. Now in Kinshasa, you can't breathe. And since they have all the cars that are no longer accepted with us, these are cars that spit black. The city continues to deteriorate. And the state does nothing. People are furious.
► Kinshasa Beta Mbonda , by Marie-Françoise Plissart, in competition at Fipadoc 2020 in the Musical documentary category
► Also read: "System K", the new artistic scene in the Congolese capital