Madagascar aujourd’hui. Kwame, 25 ans, travaille dans les mines clandestines de saphir du Sud du pays, avant que la dépouille de son père, disparu des années plus tôt, ne soit retrouvée et l’oblige à rentrer chez lui. Le cercueil au-dessus de sa tête, arrimé sur le toit d’un bus, il voyage ainsi de la capitale Antananarivo jusqu’à Toamasina, sur la côte Est, pour rejoindre la maison de sa mère. Il démarre là une nouvelle vie, découvrant chaque jour de nouveaux éléments sur la vie d’un père qu’il n’a jamais connu. Il apprend que celui-ci, en plus d’être musicien de renom dans son pays, menait une activité politique dans les années 1970. Il rencontre Babaa, un ancien camarade de lutte de son père, qui lui inculque peu à peu les valeurs de justice et de liberté pour lesquelles ils se sont battus. Kwame va alors ouvrir les yeux et commencer à lutter lui aussi pour que son pays, gangrené par la misère et la corruption, puisse un jour se relever dans la dignité.

Un film de Luck A. RAZANAJAONA

Madagascar / France, 2019 [EN DÉVELOPPEMENT], long métrage, Fiction – 80 min, couleur – 16mm

Réalisateur : Luck Ambinintsoa RAZANAJAONA

Pays : Madagascar
Durée : 80 minutes

Production :
We Film (Île de La Réunion, France)

Avec le soutien en développement du Fonds Images de la Francophonie (OIF, Paris) et du Step Fund du Festival du film africain de Luxor (Egypte)
Projet sélectionné au Rotterdam Film Festival CineMart 2018 – Prix Wouter Barendrecht (Pays-Bas)

DISCO AFRIKA tells 25-year-old Kwame’s life story, working as a clandestine sapphire extractor in the southern region of Madagascar, before he contracts a serious lung infection. Returned to his hometown on the East Coast, Kwame learns to live with his illness, and finds the mother he has not seen for a long time. He discovers in his father’s house a stack of old records, that combine various West African 70’s Afro-beat artists.
Through these records, and snippets of the past, Kwame gets to know more about his father who lived a life full of dreams and values, very present in the ‘70s African post-independence. This dream gets born in him, a sea of hope and optimism that changes his life. Babaa, the old musician, replaces his father and introduces him to the underground side of these places. He inculcates human values he has never known before. His encounter with Idi, a childhood friend, leads him down an obscure path. Day by day his disease gets worse, but he needs to continue his illegal activities. Seriously wounded by a gunshot, he ends up on a ship to Africa, rocked by this Afro-beat music that his father was so fond of, caught between two sides, between two dreams.

A film by Luck A. RAZANAJAONA

Madagascar / France, 2019, Feature narrative – 80 min, color – 16mm

Director’s Statement
Disco Africa is a story influenced by the moods and fashions of the 70s.
I want to invite the audience to return to that era, when many values
and civic movements emerged in the aftermath of independence
throughout Africa. This marked an artistic and musical awakening,
which was a continuation of the struggles of the independence
movements.
Visually, Disco Africa tries to come as close as possible to the reality experienced by the character Kwame. We work with old artifacts, relics of the 70’s, that we can still find in some African countries.
The film is entirely based on an important musical line that pulls the
story along. Here the viewer is still in the concept of the past/future
sound which is the basis of the film in general.
All footage of musicians playing live will be shot on film (8mm if
possible). This aesthetic choice of using film is important as a bridge
between the past and the present-day Africa. It is also for me a tribute to an old film genre.
All sequences will also be shot in a « camera on the shoulder » style,
using a lot of moving images, to convey the feeling of restlessness in
the characters.

Director: Razanajaona Ambinitsoa Luck

Country: Madagascar
Running Time: 80 minutes

Total Budget: 258 000 Euro
Finances Committed: 10 000 Euro

Production Company:
We Film (La Réunion Island, France)