International Competition Audience Award Winner 『Get Up Kinshasa!』

Sébastien Maitre/21:00/France, DR Congo/Drama/2016

Director: Sébastien Maitre

Q1　Comment on Award Winning

It’s a real honor to win this award in such a great festival…! For me, the audience award is the most beautiful prize, because we’re making film for the people watching it. And when they tell you that they like your movie, it’s a great encouragement to keep going on.

Q2　What’s the highlight of your film?

In “Get up Kinshasa” I wanted to talk about the resourcefulness of the Congolese, dealing on an everyday basis with a corrupt system. And I chose to talk about a ten-year-old to show that they’ll never renounce. Every morning, Samuel have to find solutions if he wants to keep going to school. He never gives up ‘til he’s back to school. As soon as he can, he decides to stop his business to keep learning. Education is the only way a society can develop. Children all over the world should go to school everyday. Education should be a birth right !

Q3　Why did you decide to submit your film to SSFF & ASIA? What is the purpose of submmitting your film to film festivals?

It’s one of the biggest festivals in the world and it was a victory to be in selection with these wonderful movies coming from all over the world. Being in festivals is important for me, to share my vision of DRC. Medias are always talking about this country in a bad way. Congolese people are dealing with what they have and they are optimistic, always aiming at the future. For me, optimism is a very important thing in life. When I did this movie, my ambition was to make people happy seeing this story. I do think that I succeeded after several awards, and especially audience awards in different countries (France, Finland, Italy, Japan….) This subject is universal. I can see it during the Q&A’s after the screenings or with the children while presenting our multimedia project in school. You can see the following of this project on our website www.deboutkinshasa.com. « Kinshasa’s Small Jobs »’s a collection of 9 documentary mini-films explaining Samuel’s research for the best job in town, and « Mbote Kinshasa »’s a comic book with more characters and more stories. We are working on the feature film as well as an educative smartphone-app for children, based on this story. We’re trying our best to spread Kinshasa’s good mood and lessons throughout the world!