A premiere steeped in memory
On 11 October, the lights of CanalOlympia Brazzaville will dim, the projector will roll, and audiences will step into Mémoires du Cfrad, a two-hour journey that compresses 120 years of Congolese and world history into a single screen experience.
Far from a conventional feature, the film functions as a living archive, weaving black-and-white fragments, recovered songs and fresh testimonies into an ambitious fresco that runs from 1904 to 2024, placing Brazzaville at the crossroads of drama, politics and everyday resilience.
Director Hassim Tall Boukambou, born in Brazzaville on 8 July 1972, again puts his dual hats of filmmaker and archivist to use, continuing the patient excavation he began with his acclaimed documentary trilogy Révolutionnaire(s).
That earlier work dissected the Three Glorious Days of August 1963; the new production enlarges the frame, inviting figures as varied as General de Gaulle and singer Franklin Boukaka to share the same temporal corridor.
Michel Raféa, Mère Geo, storyteller Robert Brazza, actress Mariusca Moukengue and cultural guardian Maxime Ndebeka join the procession, each recalled through footage, staging or voice-over, each contributing a shard to the collective mirror.
Hassim Tall’s craft of remembrance
Tall’s fascination with memory is anything but nostalgic; he treats film as a rescue mission, stating in earlier interviews that his goal is to “archive the silences” before they fade beyond recovery.
Couleurs-urbaines Brazzaville in 2005 mapped street art; the 2015 documentary Brazzaville painted a kinetic portrait of the capital’s markets, churches and studio booths — each project doubling as a census of faces the official records often overlook.
With Mémoires du Cfrad, he shifts attention from streets to stage, focusing on a single building whose walls have echoed with colonial speeches, patriotic plays and late-night rehearsals.
Cfrad: a building that keeps reinventing itself
Opened in 1904 as the Cercle civil et militaire français, the site welcomed officers in pressed uniforms; four decades later it hosted the 1944 Brazzaville Conference under General de Gaulle, a watershed in France’s wartime colonial policy.
Post-independence, the halls mutely absorbed new cadences: theater troupes testing scripts, dancers marking steps, students debating slogans of sovereignty.
Decades of underfunding and weather left the roof leaking and the curtains torn, but the building’s symbolic weight only grew, turning decay into a reminder of the fragility of heritage.
Current rehabilitation works aim to reverse that erosion by restoring a modern auditorium, rehearsal rooms and a permanent exhibition that will chart every metamorphosis since the colonial era.
From the moment construction crews cleared debris, the project team issued a call for objects: photographs, ticket stubs, posters, handwritten programs, even mismatched costumes — evidence of past evenings that might otherwise vanish in desk drawers.
A premiere as civic gathering
The 11 October screening deliberately coincides with the rehabilitation timeline, functioning less as a marketing launch than as a public checkpoint where residents can measure progress and envision future use.
Tickets are on sale, yet the organisers frame the evening as an invitation to debate, asking the audience to interrogate what should be conserved, what should evolve and who gets to decide.
In that spirit, the film oscillates between restored footage and present-day sequences of builders drilling, painters sanding, musicians rehearsing under scaffolding, all underscoring that heritage is built scene by scene.
Casting Brazzaville in a regional spotlight
While Tall’s lens never leaves the city, the narrative ripples outward; visitors from Pointe-Noire, the departments and neighbouring capitals have already signalled interest, hoping to replicate similar conservation drives in their own cultural venues.
Regional media describe the premiere as evidence that Brazzaville can still set an artistic agenda, even as digital platforms compete for attention.
For younger viewers, many born after the tumult of the 1990s, the screening offers a first encounter with names previously confined to textbook sidebars, translated now into moving images and surround sound.
By closing with a montage of empty seats gradually filling, the film gestures toward the next generation of performers who may soon occupy the refurbished stage, suggesting that memory, when properly cared for, becomes rehearsal for the future.
Industry hopes and next steps
Local producers observe that a successful turnout could strengthen the case for regular screenings of national films, reducing reliance on imported blockbusters and giving creators leverage when negotiating distribution terms with regional chains and streaming deals still in discussion.
Film lecturer Isabelle Mombeka notes that archival documentaries often struggle to reach theatres, yet viewers crave context: “Audiences want to see where they come from before they decide where to go,” she told colleagues during a recent panel rehearsal.
After the premiere, the team plans moderated conversations in schools, community halls and online forums, using short clips to spark reflection and to encourage more citizens to donate personal archives to the future Cfrad exhibition.
Until then, the projector’s glow waits patiently inside.
