Nous, etudiants!

by Rafiki Fariala

Nous, etudiants! di Rafiki Fariala – Repubblica Centrafricana, Francia, Arabia Saudita, Repubblica democratica del Congo, 2022, 82’

Sceneggiatura Rafiki Fariala
Fotografia Rafiki Fariala
Montaggio Xavier Sirven, Christian Moïse Nzengue
Produttori Boris lojkine, Daniele Incalcaterra, Elvis Sabin Ngaïbino
Produzione Makongo Films
Distribuzione Karta Film

Nestor, Aaron, Benjamin and Rafiki study economics at the University of Bangui. Four friends, including the director, who are confronted between the overcrowded classes, the small jobs that allow survival, the corruption that is everywhere. Rafiki Fariala shows us the life of four students from the Central African Republic, a society where young people continue to dream of a better future for their country.

At first I wanted to denounce the university system where nothing works, but thenI thought that this was not very interesting and I preferred to focus on our history, our life, our daily life. This is why I started to tell what it means to be a student in Central Africa, what are our difficulties, our dreams and our hopes. [Rafiki Fariala]

Rafiki Fariala (Congo, 1997) flees with her family to the Central African Republic during the war. He starts composing solo music and in 2013 he releases the song Why War? which makes him famous as a musician. In 2017 he participated in a documentary workshop organized by Ateliers Varan in Bangui, after which he made his first short film, You and Me, screened at the festivals of Lausanne, Montreal, Saint-Denis, Lille and Biarritz. Nous, étudiants! was presented as a world premiere at the Berlinale 2022.