Kinshasa,(ONA) - The film “On the Way to the Billion” by the Congolese director, Dieudo Hamadi, was included in the official list participating in the 2020 edition of the Cannes film festival, and thus it received a certificate of excellence.

As a result, this film becomes the first work from the Democratic Republic of the Congo to reach the official list level in one of the largest cinematic encounters in the world.

It is known that the Festival de Cannes was not held this year due to the pandemic of the emerging coronavirus, but the organizers decided to publish an official list of 56 films in order to support them in their participation in future festivals or during exhibition in the halls.

“On the Road to a Billion”, funded by French, Congolese and Belgian producers, tells the story of the victims of the six-day war in the city of Kisangani in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. From 5 to 10 June 2000, this city was the scene of heavy weapons confrontations between the Ugandan and Rwandan armies.

For the past 20 years, these men and women, most of whom had lost a leg, eye or arm, had a bitter struggle to formally acknowledge this conflict, condemn those responsible and obtain financial compensation. The director explained that his new film represented a continuation of a courageous documentary that he had previously produced under the title “Mama Aqid” and was awarded the “Grand Prix of Real Cinema 2017”.

Dieudo Hammadi said that the situation of these men and women goes back to his personal history, as he was born and raised in Kisangani and lived the war there. He added that he remembered how he and his brothers were crowding into the family room, which they thought was the most solid in the house.

The director indicated that to this day he still remembers the whistling of gunshots, the shaking of the walls and the blowing of glass windows under the weight of the bombs.

(ONA)