Coconut Head Generation
This recurring program highlights productions by filmmakers of African descent, which exist outside traditional distribution channels.
Winner of the Grand Prize, Cinéma du réel 2023
Every Thursday, a group of students from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria's oldest university, organizes a film club, transforming a small lecture hall into a political forum where views are refined and critical discourse is developed.
Alain Kassanda
Alain Kassanda is a Congolese French filmmaker, and founder of Ajímatí Films. He is known for his highly acclaimed documentary films Trouble Sleep (2020), Colette and Justin (2022), and Coconut Head Generation (2023). Born in Kinshasa, Kassanda left the Democratic Republic of the Congo for France at the age of 11. After studying communication, he began staging movie screenings and several film festivals in various Parisian theaters in 2003, and he was the film programmer for a movie theater near Paris for five years. He moved to Ibadan in 2015, where he shot his first medium-length film. Alain Kassanda's works have been screened at major film festivals across the globe. Trouble Sleep (2020) received the Golden Dove for Best Short Film at the DOK Leipzig Festival. His first feature-length film recalls his grandparents’ experience of Belgian colonialism and the nationalist struggles for Congolese independence. Coconut Head Generation (2023), on the history of a film club at the University of Ibadan, is his latest film.
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