Rumba Rules, New Genealogies, 2020 (still)
Screening: Rumba Rules, New Genealogies (2020)
Special screening event of Rumba Rules, New Genealogies (2020), produced by Twenty Nine Studio and directed by David N. Bernatchez and Sammy Baloji with the coll. of Kiripi Katembo Siku. 107 minutes.
Permeating the daily life of one of the great orchestras of the current generation, Rumba Rules proposes an incursion into the arcanes of a monumental African music. An essay on the meaning of self and rootedness, the film culminates in a kind of urban polyphony. Ya Mayi, Lumumba, Xéna La Guerrière, Pitchou Travolta, Alfred Solo, Soleil Patron and many others: nearly thirty artists feed the creative life of the Brigade Sarbati Orchestra. By entering the group and the city of Kinshasa, the film gets into the rumba as if it were penetrating a rootstock. Through studio work, rehearsals and concerts, different portraits offer a foray into the dynamics and stories of this highly acclaimed Congolese music. From local roots to the patrons from the diaspora, the voices of Rumba Rules polyphony are past and present.
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Working internationally and rooted locally in Brussels, Twenty Nine Studio is an independent creative organisation whose strength is based on the people who make it: “Let the land belong to those who work it”. The Twenty Nine team is Sammy Baloji, Rosa Spaliviero, Estelle Lecaille, Juliette Hourçourigaray, Minne De Meyer Engelbeen and Marek Szponik.
Sammy Baloji is a visual artist and photographer. Since 2005, he has been exploring the memory and history of the Democratic Republic of Congo. His work is a ongoing research into the cultural, architectural and industrial heritage of the Katanga region, as well as a questioning of the effects of Belgian colonisation. His work highlights how identities are shaped, transformed, perverted and reinvented.
As a film company, Twenty Nine focuses mainly on creative documentaries and artists films. Producer Rosa Spaliviero supports filmmakers in their most daring film projects with a strong social or political dimension. She chooses to produce films that show an openness to the world with a unique aesthetic device.
Since 2016, Estelle Lecaille has worked as production and research manager with artist Sammy Baloji. She is an independent curator and is in charge of the art studio management. In 2021, Juliette Hourçourigaray, production manager, joined Rosa Spaliviero for the film production management. In 2022, Minne De Meyer Engelbeen, architect and curator, joins the team as art studio assistant and Marek Szponik takes care of the administrative and financial aspects of both studio and film related projects.
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