Studios Kabako

The film “Letters from the Continent”, co-produced by HAU, was conceived and shot in May and June 2020 and features 21 artists who live and create in Cape Town, Dakar, Lagos, Maputo, Moroni, Tunis, and other cities. Filmed during the Covid-19 pandemic it reflects on how for many people there has always been some sort of crisis, either in the form of health, political or, above all, economic crisis and how the handling of it makes them everyday heroes of their lives.

From the place they live and dream, each of them speaks and dances about their difficulties, worries but also their survival strategies and hopes. More than ever, they reaffirm the urgency to create, here and now, against all odds.

These 21 letters, these 21 self-portraits introduce a new generation of dancers, choreographers, performers and actors who juggle with their surroundings to better invent and share stories of the African continent in full mutation.

With:

Fatoumata Bagayoko (Mali, sent from Bamako)

Collectif d’Art-d’Art / Michael Disanka & Christiana Tabaro (DRCongo, sent from Kinshasa)

Cie La Mer noire / Alioune Sow, Khoudia Touré, Kirsner Tsengou Dingha & Pierre-Claver Belleka aka Dexter (Senegal, Liberia, Republic of Congo, sent from Dakar)

Hamdi Dridi (Tunisia, sent from Montpellier / France)

Didier Ediho (DRCongo, sent from Kinshasa)

Chourouk El-Mahati, Moad Haddadi, Mohamed Lamqayssi (Morocco, sent from Belfort / France)

Kaïsha Essiane (Gabon, sent from Libreville)

Marcel Gbeffa (Benin, sent from Gaborone / Botswana)

Qondiswa James (Republic of South Africa, sent from Cape Town)

Samwel Japhet (Tanzania, sent from Dar-es-Salaam)

Jeannot Kumbonyeki (DRCongo, sent from Kinshasa)

Souleymane Ladji Kone (Burkina Faso, sent from Ouagadougou)

Seifeddine Manai (Tunisia, sent from Tunis)

Judith Olivia Manantenasoa (Madagascar, sent from Antananarivo)

Dorine Mokha (DRCongo, sent from Lubumbashi)

Abdoul Mujyambere (Rwanda, sent from Kigali)

Salim Mzé Hamadi Moisi (Comoros, sent from Moroni)

Nagham Salah Othman (Sudan, sent from Cairo)

Germaine Sikota (Togo, sent from Lome)

Maria Tembé (Mozambique, sent from Maputo)

Westsyde Lifestyle / Ambrose Idemudia Joshua, Daniel Emmanuel Olajuwon, Ordia Eromose & Osokoya Yemi (Nigeria, sent from from Lagos)