‘La Vie Est Belle by Mwezé Ngangura’

Kourou (Papa Wemba) is a young peasant from Zaire who wants to make music and earn a living doing any job possible. He leaves for the capital, Kinshasa, with his cousin Mongali. On the journey, Kourou falls in love with a young woman called Kabibi. Employed as a servant, Kourou does not yet know that his boss, Nvouandou, who is also under the spell of the young woman, is going to do everything in his power to make the union between Kabibi and Kourou impossible... 

This film, co-written with Benoit Lamy, is being screened as part of a Close-up dedicated to Mwezé Ngangura.

After arriving in Belgium at the age of 20, Mweze Ngangura made two short films during his studies at the IAD broadcasting school: Tamtam-électronique (Electronic Tamtam) and Rhythm and blood. After making documentaries for Zairean television for ten years, in 1985 he co-directed La Vie est Belle (Life is Rosy) with Benoît Lamy, a film that was a big hit in sub-Saharan Africa. In 1998, he wrote Pièces d’identités (Identity Pieces), which won numerous awards.