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News

Ground breaking Congalese action film Viva Riva!

By CMS

The winner of six 2011 African Movie Academy Awards, Viva Riva! is all set to dazzle cinefiles and action fans at this year’s film festival.
 
The film won Best Film, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Cinematography and Best Production Design at the 2011 African Movie Academy Awards. In addition to this, the film also won best African film at the 2011 MTV Movie Awards, Best Feature Film at the 2011 Pan African Film Festival and was official selection for the 2010 Toronto Film Festival, 2011 Berlin International Film Festival and the 2011 South by Southwest Film Festival.
 
Viva Riva! presents the modern Congo in the only way possible – through a crime story. Riva (played by Patsha Bay Mukuna in his debut role) is a small time operator who has just returned to his hometown of Kinshasa, Congo after a decade away with a major score: a fortune in hijacked gasoline. Wads of cash in hand and out for a good time, Riva is soon entranced by beautiful night club denizen Nora, the kept woman of a local gangster. Into the mix comes an Angolan crime lord relentlessly seeking the return of his stolen shipment of gasoline.
 
“In making Viva Riva! I wanted to find a new way to talk about life in Kinshasa today - to describe how my hometown works and how it doesn't work.  I also felt the time was right to depict aspects of life in the capital that everyone knows exist but no one has ever talked about publicly”. Director Djo Tunda Wa Munga.
 
“The film dives into its depiction of tough situations so forthrightly that we hope it will help sweep away some of the old school perceptions of Africa and African art.  Our aim was simply to work without fear or shame of who we are and the issues we face today.” Director Djo Tunda Wa Munga.
 
Not only is the situational background of the film unusual, but the technical background is to be admired. The film was shot entirely using Canon 5Ds, a prosumer camera designed primarily to take stills. Furthermore, director Munga trained the crew personally, and the seeds he sowed to create a film industry in the Congo have lead to Viva Riva! becoming the first ever Congolese film to see a release in the USA.
 
The privilege of screening such a historically valuable film has not been lost on festival director Casey Marshall Siemer, “What a privilege to be screening such an exciting film from the Congo. It is quite unlike any action film I have seen before. It gave me an exhilarating look at the Kinshasa underworld. Djo Tunda Wa Munga is certainly a director to follow.”