EXCLUSIVE: Rafiki Fariala’s Congo Boy has been snapped up in several key territories after winning the Un Certain Regard best actor prize at the Cannes Film Festival for its lead actor Bradley Fiomona Dembeasset.
Paris-based The Party Film Sales has sold the film to Germany and Austria (Immergute Filme), Benelux (Distri 7), Switzerland (Trigon), Brazil (Ipecine), Bulgaria (Pro8 Film Distribution), Norway (Fidalgo) and Denmark (Filmbazar). Its sister company Jour2fête will release the film in French cinemas on November 25.
Congo Boy is director Fariala’s fiction debut after documentary We, Students! which launched in Berlinale Panorama in 2022. Drawing on his own experience as a Congolese refugee in Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic where the film is set, it centres on a teenager dreaming of a music career whose parents have been thrown in prison, leaving him to care for his four younger siblings as civil war tears apart the country.
Congo Boy is produced by the Central African Republic’s Makongo Films, France’s Unité, the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Kiripi Films and Italy’s Karta Film.
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