Origin KOngo
Laura Chatenay Rivauday
Guadeloupe, France - 2024 - 52 min
synopsis
160 years ago, after the abolition of slavery, Africans known as "Kongos" were hired against their will by French recruiters on the West African coast to work the land in the Antilles. In Martinique and Guadeloupe, their descendants trace, in fragments, this little-known memory. How is it expressed today when African roots are increasingly claimed in Afro-descendant societies? What do they say about the ambivalence of our relationship with Africa?
Director
Laura Chatenay-Rivauday is a Martinican author and film director. Born in 1986 in Fort-de-France, she first worked for around ten years as a television journalist (Martinique, Paris, regions, etc.). In 2017, she turned to new narrative forms, between documentary, video creation, drawing, textile art and poetry. In her projects, she combines these different media around themes that are close to her heart: History, borders, imprint, family, etc. She follows training courses on documentary writing (Docmonde, Fémis, etc.) which allow her to refine her perspective and her productions. In 2021, she explores island confinement in her experimental short film Je est une île, participation in the international collective CoVisions (selected at the DocEdge Festival 2021 – BelleMoon Productions). She is currently developing, in co-direction with Vianney Sotès, Autopsie du gwo pwel, a documentary on heartbreak in Creole, which questions sentimental relationships in Martinique (Bérénice Médias Corp.).
PLUG
PRODUCTION
YN Productions – Cooking with images
Co-production: Kontras' Prod
DIFFUSION
France Télévisions
PARTICIPATION
CNC, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Region, Territorial Community of Martinique – CTM