Congo Boy, directed by Rafiki Fariala, and Ben’Imana, directed by Marie-Clémentine Dusabejambo, both from Un Certain Regard, emerged with accolades.
By Adedamola Jones Adedayo
Among the six African titles that premiered at this year’s Cannes in Un Certain Regard, Directors’ Fortnight, and Critics Week selections, Congo Boy, directed by Rafiki Fariala, and Ben’Imana, directed by Marie-Clémentine Dusabejambo, both from Un Certain Regard, earned major accolades.
Congo Boy, a Central African Republic/DR Congo co-production, follows a teenage Congolese refugee who chases his musical ambitions while taking care of his family and surviving in a tense political atmosphere. The film is partly an autobiographical reflection of Fariala’s life, with first-time actor Bradley Fioma Dembeasset portraying 17-year-old Robert.
For his performance in the film, Dembeasset, who was discovered by the director through a street audition, won Un Certain Regard’s Best Actor award. Dembeasset is the second African recipient of this award in the last three Cannes editions, following Abou Sangaré, who won it for Boris Lojkine’s Souleymane’s Story in 2024.
Ben’Imana equally had a fruitful Cannes outing. It won the Caméra d’Or, one of the festival’s prestigious prizes given to the best debut feature film, an unprecedented feat for an African production, and also took away the FIPRESCI Award, an honour presented by the International Federation of Film Critics (Fédération Internationale de la Presse Cinématographique) to acknowledge innovative and audacious filmmaking, which has previously been won by African filmmakers like Djibril Diop Mambéty (Touki Bouki, 1973) and Abderrahmane Sissako (Heremakono, 2002).
A co-production involving Rwanda, Gabon, France, Norway, Ivory Coast, Dusabejambo’s film follows a survivor of the 1994 Rwandan genocide rebuilding her life through reconciliation and community healing, until the efforts are threatened when she learns of her daughter’s unexpected pregnancy.
With the prestigious week-long festival coming to a halt on 23rd May, 2025, Africa left a discernible mark beyond routine presence, with the victories of co-productions like Congo Boy and Ben’Imana pointing to the continent’s storytelling potential and its growing appetite for strategic cross-border film production.