AfricaIs aCountry

Silent Elections

Africa Is a Country Podcast
African Five-a-Side Podcast

Silent Elections

By
Tom Devriendt

This is a bit older, but still worth watching. Above is a short clip from ‘Silent Elections’, a 40 min. documentary film Belgian video artist Sarah Vanagt produced in 2009. In the opening scene, she explains how “[in] 2005, I met Tonton (15), Dodo (14), and Daniel (12), three street children living on the lava in Goma, Eastern Congo. One year later I sent them three digital cameras from Brussels. I asked them to document the election process, the first democratic elections since Congo’s independence in 1960. With support from a local arts center, Tonton, Dodo and Daniel wandered the streets of Goma with their cameras. Little by little they sent their images back to Brussels: glimpses of the run-up to the [2006] elections, the campaign, the first and second rounds of voting, the celebratory atmosphere… Looking at their silent images, reminded me of the early films from the Lumière brothers. As if these “videographs” from Goma offer the very first views of the very first elections.”

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