14/03/2024 - Stéphane Vuillet and Stéphane Xhroüet’s portrait of a former child soldier struggling with his return to civilian life is free in both its form and its approach, but also heartbreaking

Stéphane Vuillet and Stéphane Xhroüet’s Katika Bluu — which had its Belgian premiere at the Love International Film Festival in Mons following its world premiere in São Paulo and its European premiere in the Alice nella Città section of the Rome Film Fest — brings us to the heart of a transit centre in Goma, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, that welcomes young boys freed from the armed groups which stole them from their families in order to turn them into cannon fodder. 

“You’re only a child here. You take yourself for a man?” 16-year-old Bravo arrives at the Centre with a belly full of rage. Extremely rebellious, he tests all limits, insults people, steals from them. Although he cleans himself of all traces from the forest and from combat, he never forgets to reapply his war paint, two blue streaks on his cheeks. While he evolves within the group, which is organised like a family, he is alone. The confrontation with the mothers who take care of these lost children is violent at first, before it becomes a source of calm. The young man needs a few days to abandon the posture of the soldier, and to (re)connect with his own childhood. This, of course, is done through contact with others. First, there is Francine, a young woman who comes to give capoeira lessons — special moments where the bodies are liberated and recover another function beside that of combat. Then, there is Paul, a newcomer Bravo develops a real affection for. “I’d like to become a snake so that I could change skin,” he claims. And so that he might, finally, find his family again. 

The story of Katika Bluu, its genesis, is inseparable from the final film. It all began with a filmmaking workshop created by Stéphane Xhroüet in the Transit and Orientation Centre in Goma, at the invitation of UNICEF. Impressed by the life that he would see reappear within the centre; by the way in which the children were fully involved with the running of the place; by their discovery, after the autocratic mechanism of war, of democracy and benevolence; Xhroüet called on Stéphane Vuillet to give more scope to the film that would close the workshop. A lot more scope, since the young people of the centre quickly came to understand the possibilities of fiction, and the power of representation. At the same time, they had the power of being, rather than merely acting. The short film turned into a feature. Hence this hybrid cinematic object, a film with the force of a documentary, but one that is amplified by an aesthetic that borrows from the tools of fiction filmmaking. Bravo’s pain echoes that of all former child soldiers. The film shows the nightmares that haunt him. During one striking scene, we observe these young boys, torn between their sensitivity as children and their experience, play at war. It’s impossible not to be unsettled by this collusion between children’s games, and the life trajectory of these characters, especially since the film’s sound design immerses us with them in their own memories. 

Katika Bluu was produced by Hélicotronc and will be distributed in Belgium by Libérations Films.

(Translated from French)