The Chapel
The recurrent cycle Noir.e.s à la caméra allows us to discover works directed or produced by African or Afrodescendant filmmakers throughout the history of cinema.
Restored Version
Congo, 1930s. In a village located several kilometers from the administrative post, men attached to ancestral traditions have no other ambition than to live in peace. The evangelical mission has set up a school and asked the population to build a chapel. Work drags on, exasperating the parish priest who enlists the help of the sacristan and the village chief to speed up the construction of the chapel. The arrival of a young teacher, full of modernist ideas, and the hostile attitude of the schoolmaster, enabled the parish priest to reinforce his authority.
Jean-Michel Tchissoukou
Jean-Michel Tchissoukou is one of the first Congolese filmmakers to have emerged after independence. In 1970, he directed his first film, the medium-length film Illusions, which recounts the misadventure of a peasant searching for work in Brazzaville, quickly disillusioned between the coldness of his brother, the harsh reality of the job market, and political tensions. Tchissoukou transitioned to feature films in 1979 with The Chapel, a humorous film set in Congo in the 1930s depicting tensions between pre-colonial African religions and the Catholic Church. The film won the Prize of the most authentic African film at the Panafrican Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou (FESPACO) in Burkina Faso in 1981. His second feature film, The Wrestlers (M'Pongo), was released in 1982. The film depicts a psychological drama in a gymnastics class where a former teacher teaches traditional wrestling techniques, exploring generational conflict and cultural changes occurring in Congo between 1930 and 1960.
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