Prisms And Portraits: The Films Of Rosine Mbakam

We are excited to announce our exciting DVD box set of films from one of world cinema’s greatest living documentarians: Rosine Mbakam. PRISMS AND PORTRAITS: THE FILMS OF ROSINE MBAKAM is collectable, deluxe 4 DVD set that contains four of her critically acclaimed, award winning features as well as two, previously unavailable shorts films.

Rosine Mbakam’s powerful empathetic documentary films focus on the migrant experiences of women and the legacies of colonialism. Cameroonian-born and Belgium-based Mbakam constructs films with a patient rigor devoted to giving the women she features space to tell their own stories.

THE TWO FACES OF A BAMILEKE WOMAN

• 76 minutes • 2016 • Cameroon/Belgium • Color

in French and Cameroon Pidgin with English subtitles

Mbakam’s feature debut is a sharply observed, nuanced, and powerful

documentary that captures the filmmaker’s relationship with her mother,

aunts, and other women, their daily lives, and the strength of their solidarity.

CHEZ JOLIE COIFFURE

• 70 minutes • 2018 • Belgium • Color

in French and Cameroon Pidgin with English subtitles

Inside a tiny underground hair salon its charismatic owner, Sabine, a

Cameroonian immigrant, makes her clients, mostly undocumented, feel

beautiful – and provides a space to escape the daily difficulties and harsh

realities of their lives.

DELPHINE’S PRAYERS

• 91 minutes • 2021 • Color • Belgium

in French and Cameroon Pidgin with English subtitles

Mbakam’s friend, Delphine, thirty years old, recounts a life of hardship, sex

work, and then escape to Belgium -- only to find herself enmeshed in a new

type of sexual exploitation.

PRISM

• 2021 • 78 minutes • Color • Belgium • in French with English subtitles

Exploring the question “Is the very technology of cinema racist?” three women

directors, two African and one Belgian, work together on a film in which the

differences in their skin color, and experiences as filmmakers, are the pointsof-departure.

PRISMS & PORTRAITS: FILMS OF ROSINE MBAKAMN