All Roads Film Festival – Benda Bilili!

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Benda Bilili

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Benda Bilili - Renaud Barret

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All Roads Film Festival – Benda Bilili!

Last evening I attended one of the week-long film viewings featuring films and their makers who produce movies that make a difference. Here is one description of one of 40 films that illustrate this.

Thanks to Francine Blythe, Director, National Geographic All Roads Film Project for the invitation and opportunity to be permanently moved by this incredible story.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqWk6hDfYNI

Benda Bilili interpreted means “Look beyond appearances.”

Let’s start with notion of wanting to make a film. Renaud Barret and Florent de La Tullaye kicked around some ideas and came up with this one.

First, the story had to be discovered and it was found in a place that is dangerous, an urban center in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It was discovered on the back streets and among a lot of people about whom anyone with heart would find compassion, though only those bravest of hearts and souls would ever discover it.

Frenchmen know this place as Congo that was formerly a French colony. The people speak French and they dream about Europe as a place far better than their existence here, living in abject poverty.

The subjects are not just impoverished; they have lost their limbs and are paraplegic. These people could feel sorry for themselves but they have a leader who will not permit this because they are on a mission to “do their job,” and that is to make music and thereby care for their families living together in a cardboard community.

Their lyrics say, “thank you cardboard cripples.”

“Why are you making fun of me because I am crippled?”

The band of brothers make music from broken down and crude instruments, though it is music just the same. While the “orchestra” is made up of elders, one young man joins them and it is their hope that he will carry on when they have gone.

But, first, with tremendous help from filmmakers, the paraplegic  orchestra gets under contract and goes on a European tour to deliver on their promise to their loved ones that earn thanks for the cardboard cripples.

“The sun shines on everyone,” and they prove it.

See this film. Ask you theater when it is coming. You will love it from beginning to end.