(, "African Notebook") is a 2016

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional film, motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". Bill Nichols (film critic), Bil ...

by Heidi Specogna, a Swiss

filmmaker Filmmaking (film production) is the process by which a motion picture is produced. Filmmaking involves a number of complex and discrete stages, starting with an initial story, idea, or commission. It then continues through screenwriting, castin ...

. Beginning in 2008, Specogna's long-term observation follows the lives of two young Central African woman, ''Amzine'' and ''Arlette''. The film was prompted by the discovery of a small exercise book, full of courageous testimonies by more than 300 victims of war crimes committed by Central African

mercenaries A mercenary, sometimes also known as a soldier of fortune or hired gun, is a private individual, particularly a soldier, that joins a military conflict for personal profit, is otherwise an outsider to the conflict, and is not a member of any o ...

during armed conflict between October 2002 and March 2003.

Content

As a result of rape, ''Amzine'', a young Muslim woman, gave birth to a child. Looking at her now 12-year-old daughter ''Fane'' is a daily reminder of the suffering she entrusted to this book. Arlette, a Christian girl, has agonised for years due to a gunshot to the knee that did not want to heal. After a successful surgery in Berlin, she holds on to hope for a pain-free existence. But while the two young woman try to master their difficult daily lives with confidence – and while, in

The Hague The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital of ...

, the legal prosecution of crimes committed during the last war is still in progress – the next war breaks out in the

Central African Republic The Central African Republic (CAR; ; , RCA; , or , ) is a landlocked country in Central Africa. It is bordered by Chad to the north, Sudan to the northeast, South Sudan to the southeast, the DR Congo to the south, the Republic of th ...

. ''Amzine'', ''Fane and ''Arlette'' must once again face a maelstrom of violence, death and expulsion. At their side, the film bears witness to the collapse of order and civilization in a country torn apart by civil war and coup d’états.

Reception

Giorgia Del Don writes for Cineurope: "Heidi Specogna’s latest film literally speaks through images .about a sad and hopeless beauty. Without ever toppling over into pity, the director portrays the everyday reality of her protagonists with dashes of hope." She particularly praises the intensity of the film: "Heidi Specogna ..make us understand to what extent life has the same value everywhere. A terrible and poetic film it takes extreme courage to watch."

Awards

won the Zonta Club Award at

Locarno International Film Festival The Locarno Film Festival is an annual film festival, held every August in Locarno, Switzerland. Founded in 1946, the festival screens films in various competitive and non-competitive sections, including feature-length narrative, documentary, sh ...

2016. At DOK Leipzig 2016, was awarded the Silver Dove. received the 2016 German Human Rights Film Award (Deutscher Menschenrechts-Filmpreis) Deutscher Menschenrechts-Filmpreis (German)
Retrieved 2016-11-10

References

External links

*
at Rushlake Media

''Cahier Africain'' at Filmbringer Distribution

Part 1
an
Part 2
on

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distributed by

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2016 films 2016 documentary films Swiss documentary films German documentary films Films about war crimes Documentary films about war crimes Documentary films about Africa 2010s English-language films 2010s German films {{hist-documentary-film-stub