IN CINEMA

Congo In Harlem 16
COLETTE AND JUSTIN
Tickets: $15 General Admission / $7 Reduced Price 
Tuesday, October 15th at 7PM

Co-Presented with Friends of the Congo

Alain Kassanda, 2022, 89 min.

Born in Kinshasa and living in Paris, filmmaker Alain Kassanda embodies the classic immigrant dual identity: in the Democratic Republic of Congo he is seen as French, while in France he is seen as Congolese. Determined to understand the colonial legacy from which he comes, Kassanda convinces his grandparents—Colette and Justin—to sit for a series of interviews. Together, they watch old news footage, remember a visit from the Belgian king, and recall what life was like as part of the nascent Black bourgeoisie who served the colonial administration. But COLETTE AND JUSTIN is more than a film about family reminiscences. Kassanda uses a wealth of black-and-white archival footage to tell the story, superimposing his own thoughts and his grandparents’ voices over the visuals—in effect, using the colonizers’ images against them. 

Beginning as one man’s search to understand himself and his roots, COLETTE AND JUSTIN is ultimately an evocative and thoughtful meditation on the intersection of political and family history, and the multi- generational destructive reach of colonialism.