Chez jolie coiffure

Rosine Mbakam filmed her documentary at at Belgian hair salon where African women gathered to commune: sewing and braiding hair, discussing relationships and life. One younger woman complained about eyelashes being glued to her, saying the glue could make her blind. Sabine,…

Allison M. 🌱

☆"I swear, Rosine, the things I've seen…"☆ Shades of Chantal Akerman are abound in Rosine Mftego Mbakam's magical little documentary Chez Jolie Coiffure, a look into the immigrant Brussels district of Matonge and the Cameroonian women who frequent the salon of the…

🐱Andrew Chrzanowski🐱

Part of March Around the World 2021 Country: Belgium I first heard of this film when I was looking up responses to Justin Simien’s Bad Hair, and found this article listing films by Black women that have something to do with Black women’s hair. At the time—early…

enricioni

Rosine Mbakam has such a keen grasp on how to build out a person’s identity and then populate a sense of community around them. It’s an underrated skill, and it’s one that realizes slowly even in just over an hour. In Les deux visages d'une femme Bamileke, it was Mbakam’s…

Kai White

wowwwwwwwwwww not only did i get lucky enough to watch a film by a female Cameroonian director but she’s also from the same tribe as me (Bamileke) !!!!!!  Part of BAM’s “The Black Worker” series  So good, a cozy watch for me. Felt nice to be in on the subtleties that…

vagabonvagabon

In order to tell stories of her own people from a perspective residing outside the Western colonialist gaze, a Cameroon-Belgian Rosine Mbakam with a few films under her belt decided to spend time in the African quarter in Matonge, Belgium, and follow the life of a fellow…

RasmusS

an incredible one room doc,, the director rosine mbakam almost a fly on the wall, but she inhabits the space just enough to exist beyond voyeur,, honestly amazed at the range of color painted in this picture, moments of joy, solidarity, disgust, fear – somehow managing to…

raaghav

Toni Morrison once said that there is no place she could ever go to to properly memorialize slavery, so instead her books had to. If that is the case, then Mbakam’s work is a monument to imperialism and the resilience of fellow Cameroonian women to it.  Every shot is so…

nicksmaldone

True/False Film Festival Film #9: This was probably my favorite film of the festival. Chez Jolie Coiffure is set entirely in a hair salon in Brussels owned by Sabine, a Cameroonian immigrant. Growing up, the hair salon, whether it was an actual salon or someone's else,…

Kayla Myers