Watching: Ici, Pointe-Noire

Overview

Pointe-Noire, Congo's oil capital, saw black gold reshape the country's political landscape and fuel the tensions that led to the 1997-1998 civil war. But this film begins in Paris, in a Congolese restaurant, where Fred, the owner, brings together people from Pointe-Noire. As they share memories of the city they left behind, their stories stir my own: those of a childhood spent there, inside an ELF expatriate oil compound.