Cinema Politica is delighted to announce our 2019 Audience Choice Award-winning film—CAMFRANGLAIS by filmakers Mylène Augustin & Feven Ghebremariam, a futuristic story about linguistic sovereignty. Melding streams of Indigenous futurism with Afrofuturism, CAMFRANGLAIS imagines a not-so-distant world, looking ahead to Summer 2117, a year that will be revealing for 18-year-old Cameroonian girl, Sam. Freshly elected to the tribal council that governs her country, she joins the national delegation that is invited to Tiohtià:ke (Montreal).
This trip is a pilgrimage for the young girl, as she traces the steps of her great-grandmother who lived in this northern land over a hundred years ago. She will also come to realize the connection that ties her people to this foreign land, a bond woven through a struggle that will lead Cameroonian people and First Nations to linguistic sovereignty.
A fantastical achievement of Quebec cinema, CAMFRANGLAIS was produced and featured as part of Cinema Politica’s The Next 150: Documentary Futurism project, which seeks to usher in a new kind of filmmaking that brings actuality into conversation with speculation, realism with fantasy. Documentary futurism is an exploration of cinematic language that collides critique of present-day political, social and environmental issues with alternative histories or imagined futures. CAMFRANGLAIS is one of these possible worlds, reflecting on the complexity of language—an issue that both unites and divides Quebec, where colonial languages rarely acknowledge the multiplicity of Indigenous languages that preceded them.
Mylène Augustin & Feven Ghebremariam are in excellent company, with previous years’ selections going to I AM ROHINGYA by Yusuf Zine, ANGRY INUK by Alethea Arnaquq-Baril, SWEET CRUDE by Sandy Cioffi, and THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING by Avi Lewis with Naomi Klein—just to name a few! To check out past Audience Choice Award Winners, follow this link.
