Chez jolie coiffure
Directed by Rosine Mbakam.
Belgium/Cameroon , 2018, DCP, color, 71 min.
French with English subtitles.
DCP source: Icarus Films

Mbakam reveals the unseen worlds contained within the microcosm of a hair salon inside a Brussels shopping mall in a neighborhood that has become a hub of African transplants. Helmed by the steadfast Sabine, the salon is not only a place of business, but a community center, therapy clinic, or even display window—when the curious white tourists gawk—and at its most precarious, the entire mall becomes a trap where police search for undocumented immigrants. Mbakam spent a year within the glassed-off confines of the salon, filming Sabine as she multitasks. During the intimate swathes of time-consuming hair braiding and styling, shop talk ranges from the misconceptions of life in Europe for African immigrants; the sex trafficking of young African women and everyone’s money troubles; to joking, flirting and of course, love and beauty advice. The latter are usually courtesy of Sabine, who is the gentle guide and the stoic center of this ad-hoc sanctuary. Between helping people with their relationships, finding housing and jobs or recruiting for her tontine, Sabine also discloses her own traumatic tale of a hard-won, precarious independence, one that has taken her far away from Cameroon, yet has enabled her to nurture a new, improvised family making their way on unstable ground.