Us Too: Women of Color Speak


First in documentary Mama Colonel (Congo/France, 72 mins), Colonel Honorine Munyole is a robust forty-four-year-old widow and mother of seven young children – four of her own, three adopted. She wields her uniform, beret and black handbag like a protective shield, which her daily work desperately requires. More or less on her own, she runs a small police unit dedicated to protecting women who’ve been raped and children who’ve suffered abuse in the war-plagued regions of the Congo. At the start of Maman Colonelle, she’s transferred from Bukavu to Kisangani, arriving only to discover her future home and office in a desolate state. While she deals with such practical obstacles with suitable feistiness, the traumas and social deformities of the people around her have nightmarish dimensions: the envy surrounding those with state-recognised ‘victim’ status, hope for help from the ‘whites’, depression, helplessness. Although it’s hard for a Western audience to understand from where exactly this woman draws her strength, we follow her mission with growing fascination nonetheless. The film is at once a tribute to a heroine of our times and the document of a true achievement with respect to civilization.

The Words I Do Not Have Yet (UK, 11mins) by visual artist Phoebe Boswell explores the way women have historically used their bodies to protest when words and voices were not enough or would not be heard.

And Nothing Happened (USA, 15 mins) by Naima Ramos Chapman is a haunting examination of one woman's life in the aftermath of sexual violence. Her sexuality, her moment to moment domestic life and her fight against the perpetrator that gets treated as though bureaucracy reveal intimate details of what it is like to survive trauma.

När: 3 mars 2018 14:00 - 3 mars 2018 16:00

Var: Klarabiografen / Stockholm

Arrangör: Klarabiografen, Kulturhuset Stadsteatern, CinemAfrica Sweden

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