by Murtada

Set in Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo - a country which has seen a lot of strife in its recent history - Félicité is the new film from Alain Gomis, a French director of Guinea-Bissauan and Senegalese descent. It tells the story of its eponymous heroine, a singer trying to put a life together and barely making it work. The first few scenes establishes Félicité’s daily grind. She sings nights in a makeshift bar, comes home to tiny place. Her fridge is not working, she needs someone to fix it. Yet money is scarce so she has to make do with a local guy who’s obviously not the right person for the job.

Things start taking a turn for the worse when her teenage son is seriously injured in an accident...