Atalaku preceded by Ladies in Waiting

Director: Dieudo Hamadi, Divita Wa Lusala

2013 / 90min / DCP

Hamadi’s impassioned debut documentary feature, Atalaku, which took home the Joris Ivens Award at Cinéma du Réel, examines the routine bribery, fraud, and corruption at play in the 2012 elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo—allegedly the first democratic elections since the nation became independent in 1960, though in actual fact a sham that would end in the return to power of dictator Joseph Kabila. With Ladies in Waiting, Hamadi and co-director Divita Wa Lusala’s expose of exploitative practices at the Kitambo maternity clinic in Kinshasa, where mercenary administrators essentially hold hostage the penniless mothers entrusted to their care.

Introduction from series curator Lydia Ogwang