Encounters 2021: Downstream To Kinshasa

Every year since our founding in 2010, The Bioscope has proudly hosted screenings of The Encounters Documentary Film Festival. Always a highlight in our calendar, the festival returns this year with limited physical screenings at The Bioscope from 11-20 June. Tickets are R70. For more information on the festival as a whole, please visit encounters.co.za

DOWNSTREAM TO KINSHASA.

Directed by: Dieudo Hamadi. (DRC | France | Belgium) Dur: 1h 28 mins.

For six days in June 2000, a bloody war was waged in the city of Kisangani, located in the northeast of the Democratic Republic of Congo, as troops from neighbouring Rwanda and Uganda fought for control of the region’s mining wealth. The brief but bloody war left around 1,000 people dead, and at least 3,000 wounded. For two decades, Kisangani’s civilian victims have been fighting for recognition of this bloody conflict and demanding the compensation they were promised. Tired of unsuccessful pleas and weary of false promises, a delegation of the war’s victims finally decides to take their claims directly to the capital of Kinshasa, after a long and determined journey down the Congo River. Punctuated by re-enactments on a stark theatrical stage, Downstream to Kinshasa is far more than a demand for compensation, it is a portrait of human dignity and the universal need for recognition and visibility.

COVID POLICY AND PROCEDURE.

The new Bioscope location is set to be a 47 seater cinema. We are however selling far less in order for there to be space to sit apart from other members of the public. We ask you to please keep your mask on the entire time within the cinema premises. Drinks and snacks will be on sale and can be consumed during the film, but please consider those around you when your mask is off for this. 44 Stanley is largely an open air shopping centre, and The Bioscope has a great outside space directly outside the cinema that public can make use of. Within the cinema, we will also make use of temperature reading, air filtering, and constant cleaning to make sure that The Bioscope remains a safe and hygienic experience.

After purchasing tickets, if you experience any COVID related symptoms, or come into contact with anyone who has tested positive, we ask you to please not attend the screening. Please understand that The Bioscope will not be able to refund you this ticket. We are happy however for you to give your ticket to someone else that can attend. If this is not possible, we would be happy to exchange your ticket for a future screening/event. This can all be coordinated via email at [email protected]