Skip to main content
Félicité film image; woman dancing

Félicité

FOCUS

This event has passed

Félicité is a proud, free-willed woman working as a singer in a bar in Kinshasa. Her life is thrown into turmoil when her 14-year-old son falls victim to an accident. To save him, she sets out on a breakneck race through the streets of electric Kinshasa – a world of music and dreams where she’ll cross paths with Tabu…

Félicité is a force; a woman who, when faced with the ghastly injury of her son, must pull out all the stops to save him. Through the busy streets of Kinshasa, she rushes against time and all odds to restore order to her life. Véro Tshanda Beya Mputu’s performance is singular in its portrayal of the difficulties of city life as a woman. We witness her navigate her job as a singer and her inevitable grief as a woman touched by life.

Kika Memeh & Ogheneofegor Obuwoma, FOCUS Curators

 

Presented by

Director
Cast

Véro Tshanda Beya Mputu, Gaetan Claudia, Papi Mpaka

Credits
Country of Origin

France/Senegal/Belgium/
Germany/Lebanon

Year

2017

Language

In Lingala with English subtitles

Film Contact
18+
123 min
Black Cinema Drama
Andolfi, Granit Films

Book Tickets

This event has passed.

Credits & Director

Executive Producer

Roger Ngandu Kangudia

Producer

Arnaud Dommerc, Alain Gomis, Omar Sall

Screenwriter

Alain Gomis

Cinematography

Céline Bozon

Editor

Fabrice Rouaud

Production Design

Oumar Sall

Original Music

The Kasaï Allstars

Alain Gomis headshot; Félicité director

Alain Gomis

Alain Gomis was born in Paris, France where he studied art history and film. After making videos and short films, his first feature film L’afrance (2002) won the Silver Leopard at Locarno. Félicité was shown at the Competition section of the 2017 Berlinale.

Filmography: L’afrance (2002); Andalucia (2007); Aujourd’hui (2012); Rewind & Play (2022)

Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre

All We Imagine as Light

Dir. Payal Kapadia
115 min

What Wong Kar-wai did for Hong Kong, Payal Kapadia does for Mumbai: the Cannes Grand Prix winner is a romantic heartbreaker about three nurses at different stages of life. It's a future classic.

VIFF Centre - Vancity Theatre VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Arthur Erickson: Beauty Between the Lines

Dir. Ryan Mah & Danny Berish
80 min

This new documentary offers the most complete account so far of the life and work of Canada's greatest architect, the man responsible for several of the finest buildings in Vancouver -- including the Museum of Anthropology and the SFU Campus.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Black Box Diaries

Dir. Shiori Ito
104 min

A first person true crime story, Shiori Ito's Black Box Dairies chronicles her long, difficult campaign to hold a veteran journalist (a friend of the Prime Minister) to account for rape.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Memoir of a Snail

Dir. Adam Elliot
94 min

A stellar Australian cast voice this charming and emotional animated feature by Adam Elliot, the tale of a lonely foster kid befriended by an eccentric elderly woman who turns her life around. (Not for kids!)

VIFF Centre - Vancity Theatre VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Bird

Dir. Andrea Arnold
119 min

In Andrea Arnold's latest, 12-year-old Bailey (Nykiya Adams) lives in a squat near the English seaside. Neglected by her chaotic father (Barry Keoghan), she pursues an adventure with a magnetic stranger named Bird (Franz Rogowski).

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Never Look Away

Dir. Lucy Lawless
84 min

A piercing portrait of CNN combat camerawoman Margaret Moth, who fearlessly captured images from Desert Storm, Bosnia, Rwanda, Lebanon, and never backed down, even after a near fatal bullet to the head.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre