38th edition 2023 short & midlength films
Uje
Jean-Luc Mitana
Mariam's marriage turns upside down after a strange boy secretly follows her home and refuses to leave.
Jean-Luc Mitana is a director and cinematographer from Rwanda, and a member of the Almond Tree Films Collective. He directed his first short film SAA-IPO in 2010. The world premiere of Uje took place at Fespaco in 2023.
- Scénario
- Jean-Luc MITANA
- Photographie
- Jean-Luc MITANA
- Son
- Didier NORS, Safali EUGENE
- Montage
- Shakur NDAYISHIMIYE
- Décors
- Myriam U BIRARA
- Production
- Karekezi Production, Inzu Films
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A word from the selection committee :
On a country road, a woman turns around, and a child follows her. A young couple’s stern, God-fearing routine is disrupted by this vision of a rather grown child, which sprung out of nowhere. The relationship between the man and the woman is increasingly difficult: he refuses to accept what she believes is a miracle, as she tenderly takes the lost child in. In an abandoned house in the Rwandan countryside, the filmmaker captures the delicate destitute daily rituals, strangely calling to mind Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman. Is it us, as Westerners, who read signs of emancipation in the woman’s unsettled state, or is the director coaxing us? In the final movement, UJE makes room for doubt.
- Claire-Emmanuelle Blot