Makala

Simplicity is the key to the somber beauty of MAKALA, a documentary depicting a congolese charcoal-maker doing his utmost to raise his family under penurious conditions. Emmanuel Gras’ Camera embraces the subject’s every move with such rapt intimacy and cinematic poetry it’s easy to forget this is not a fictional drama. Kasongo is a 28-year-old who lives near the town of Kolwezi in the southern province of Katanga. His ambitions are as basic as they are universal – to build a house for his wife Lydie and three daughters. The only livelihood he knows is making charcoal from chopped and slowly flamed firewood, a backbreaking task that Gras observes with hallowed silence, devoid of any superfluous effects or exposition. By the time Kasongo stuffs the charcoal into giant sacks and loads them onto his bicycle to take to town, Gras’ cinematography enters the realm of the symbolic. Through a gray and ochre cloud of dust and smog, Kasongo pushes the bicycle uphill, a veritable embodiment of Sisyphus. (Maggie Lee)

In the presence of Emmanuel Gras and Nicoals Anthomé.