Rising Up at Night

Tongo Saa

Berlinale

VERDICT: Nelson Makengo's beautifully shot and observed documentary 'Rising Up at Night' captures the darkness of Kinshasa after severe flooding and electricity cuts, along with the resilience of its people.

In Kinshasa, living in the darkness does not only mean not knowing, but also living where the only source of light is low-quality Chinese-made flashlights, if you can afford them and renewing the batteries every day.

In one admirable scene in Nelson Makengo’s documentary Rising Up at Night, bowing in the Berlin Panorama, the residents are attempting to celebrate New Year’s. As midnight approaches, children gather in astonishment around a Congolese street vendor dressed up as Santa Claus in a white-skinned mask, to sell colorful flashlights. An insane reality that the director captures.

In 2021, with 17 million inhabitants, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kinshasa, suffered major power cuts amid negligence from the government. Darkness is the official tone in the film, whether we like it or not. Makengo attempts to find beauty and aesthetics in the dark, shooting by the light of his camera and sometimes by the light of flashlights carried by his leads. It must have been challenging to capture all these details and beautiful shots with so little light. The result is a series of portraits of his subjects who, despite the tragedy they are facing, never give up.

At intervals we see light, and Makengo connects these visually bright moments to times where people are marching to take action or heading to buy a new generator. One scene is lit by dawn piercing a bluish sky, and features children going to school, despite the uncertainty of tomorrow. It’s clear that the fight of the people of Kinshasa is not going to end anytime soon.

The crisis takes place amid state and government corruption, but Makengo does not engage directly in attacking the government. His cameras don’t follow the politicians, or film protesters calling for the resignation of a minister or an official. But one scene says it all. Roaming the dark, muddy, flooded streets, residents listen to news on the radio that president Felix Tshisekedi has vowed to increase the capacity of the Inga 3 Hydropower Project from 4800 megawatts to 7500 megawatts. Announced in 2013 at a cost of $14 billion, the project aimed to deliver power primarily for export to South Africa and power mines in eastern Congo. However, the project had its share of controversy and suffered from kickbacks and regional disputes.

Gender roles, the expected and imposed ones, are well-illustrated. Unemployed young men expect their mothers to pay for new generators and electrical equipment; the men will guard it. That’s why Makengo dedicates more interviews and facetime to his female subjects, despite the fact that the three main leads are men. The women loudly voice their opinions and concerns: the darkness allows rapists to target their daughters. The darkness lets elderly women fall into holes and face severe injuries. The floods damage their houses and prevent their children from going to school. They also don’t trust the men to collect the money to buy the equipment necessary to restore electricity, as discrepancies appear.

The three men he films differ in their coping mechanisms and reactions to the crisis, and this is a point for Makengo who shows the complexity of this impoverished society, emphasizing the array of different personalities in Africa.

For example, Kudi is rallying the inhabitants of the Kisenso neighborhood to gather funds for a new power cable. Meanwhile, atop Mount Mangengenge, a site overlooking the city, Pastor Gédéon preaches about the illumination of Christ. Davido, on the other hand, is on a quest to find shelter after his home was flooded, and tries to blow off steam by working out with friends.

Kudi and Gédéon are shown as opposites, but no sides are taken. The first takes physical action, which is of course subject to either success or failure. Gédéon fires up his congregation, praying for Jesus to guide the Congolese leaders to do what is right and fix society’s problems on behalf of God.

Makengo captures the “societal dialogues” that many governments and parliaments in Africa promise to hold. But in the Kisenso neighborhood, the dire crisis pushes the residents to seriously engage in dialogue and take things into their own hands, as they know they have been abandoned by their so-called elected leaders.

As rebel operations mount in eastern Congo, led by armed Tutsi groups affiliated with Rwanda, the already fragile infrastructure of small cities and villages risk destruction, repeating the same tragic reality that Rising Up at Night is trying so brilliantly to show.

Director, screenwriter: Nelson Makengo
Editing: Inneke Van Waeyenberghe
Producers: Rosa Spaliviero, Dada Kahindo Siku
Co-Producers: Florian Schewe, Michel K. Zongo, Marie Logie, Samuel Feller, Isabelle Christiaens
Music: Bao Sissoko, Wouter Vandenabeele
Sound: Moimi Wezam
Production companies: Twenty Nine Studio & Production, Mutotu Productions, Film Five, Diam Auguste Orts, Magellan Films, RTBF
World sales: Square Eyes
Venue: Berlin Film Festival (Panorama)
In Lingola
96 minutes