a young black man and woman sit distractedly with their backs to one anotheralr

Quartier Mozart

Screening on Film
Directed by Jean-Pierre Bekolo.
With Serge Amougou, Saïdou Abatcha, Timoléon Luc.
Cameroon/France, 1992, 35mm, color, 80 min.
French with English subtitles.
Print source: Arsenal Berlin

Jean-Pierre Bekolo's first film is the story of the misadventures of a young girl called "Chef de Quartier" (District Manager), a little too curious for her age. The witch Mama Tecla teaches Chef de Quartier a revealing lesson by turning her into a young man. Now she becomes "Mon Type" (My Guy), and as if to mock their machismo, she joins the gang of youngsters in the Mozart district, who spend their time flirting. They encourage her to seduce "Samedi" (Saturday), the daughter of "Chien Méchant" (Naughty Dog), the grotesque local policeman, who never stops playing with his walkie-talkie.

Screened at major film festivals from Cannes to Locarno, Ouagadougou and Montreal, Quartier Mozart is a comedy with a burlesque and fickle accent, in which the game of cross-dressing only makes sense within the social satire staged in this working-class district of Yaoundé. By mixing stories of love, belief and witchcraft with influences from American cinema—the opening sequence is reminiscent of Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing—Bekolo was already, at the age of twenty-five, inventing his own cinematic grammar within what would become a classic of African cinema.

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