synopsis
Colonel Honorine, more commonly known as « Mama Colonel », works for the Congolese police force and heads the unit for the protection of minors and the fight against sexual violence. Having worked for 15 years in Bukavu, in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, she learns she is transferred to Kisangani. There, she finds herself faced with new challenges. Through the portrait of this extraordinarily brave and tenacious woman, who fights for justice to be done, this film addresses the issue of violence towards women and children in the DRC and the difficulty of overcoming the past war.
director biography
Dieudo Hamadi
Dieudo Hamadi was born in Kisangani (Democratic Republic of the Congo) in 1984 and studied Medicine in 2005-2008. He then attended several documentary workshops. He is author of two short documentaries Ladies In Waiting and Zero Tolerance that caught the attention of several festivals in Europe (Berlin, Paris, Amsterdam) and Canada (Toronto). Ladies In Waiting received the ‘‘Pierre and Yolande Perrault’’ scholarship at Cinema du Réel (Paris) in 2009. In 2013, with Atalaku, his first feature documentary about the 2011 election campaign in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, he won the Joris Ivens award for best first film, presented by Marceline loridan (Cinema du Réel), Best Foreign Film at the San Diego Black Film Festival (USA), the Jury Prize at FIDADOC (Agadir, Morocco) and 3 other awards. In 2014, National Diploma receives both the International Prize of the SCAM and the Potemkin award at Cinéma du Réel (France), is selected at TIFF (Toronto) and nearly 60 festivals worldwide. In 2015, Mama Colonel his latest film in production, received assistance in post-production from the Sundance Institute and IDFA - BerthaFund.