Alone Directed by Jafar Najafi
What is the appropriate age to get married? For the twelve-year-old Iranian twins Marzieh and Razieh, their age is appropriate to get married: “Now we are adults, we must get married”. They are the protagonists of Alone, directed by Jafar Najafi, presented at the 79th Venice Film Festival.
The setting is southwestern Iran, in the province of Chahar Mahal and Bakhtiari. A predominantly mountainous region and an agricultural economy with low income.
Bobi Wine Ghetto President Directed by Moses Bwayo, Christopher Sharp
August 2014. The United Kingdom refused entry visas to the famous Ugandan singer Bobi Wine. How did a homophobic rapper, banned from the UK, manage to become Uganda's presidential candidate? How did he manage, after a few years, to be welcomed in the USA and England as a hero of political correctness?
The phenomenon is explained with skill by the directors Moses Bwayo and Christopher Sharp in the beautiful documentary Bobi Wine Ghetto President, presented at the 79th Venice Film Festival.
Bobi Wine is brilliant, devoted. He is fun with the crowd, docile in the hands of promotion but also divisive for Ugandans.
Scala Directed by Ananta Thitanat
Scala was a very famous cinema in Bangkok. The most iconic. This phase of dismantling is narrated tenderly in the documentary Scala, by young filmmaker Ananta Thitanat presented at the Bangkok World Film Festival 2022 in which it won the Grand Jury Prize.
The documentary closely follows the work of tearing down the interiors and furnishings of the theatre. The style of the building was brilliant, with an extended foyer, staircase, and a huge chandelier. They removed the red seats and unclean curtains. When they fell, the dust rose; it was the dust of the history of world cinema.
This is Congo Directed by Daniel McCabe
The Democratic Republic of Congo has an extreme difference: a paradise of beauty and wealth in opposite a hell of bad politics and outrageous external interventions.
"Growing in Congo because of God's will mean growing in paradise", says a character from the documentary This is Congo by director Daniel McCabe, presented at the 74th Venice Film Festival.
It narrates the civil war in the eastern Congo, lead by the armed group M23, supported by the two usual adversaries, Rwanda and Uganda.