MAMBAR PIERRETTE (Belgium-Cameroon-France, 2023, 93′)

Thursday, October 3, at 6:30 pm, Cinema Romano, Sala 1

Event in collaboration with CNA Torino

Job Film Days, in collaboration with CNA Torino, presents the film Mambar Pierrette (Belgium-Cameroon-France,2023) by Cameroonian director Rosine Mbakam on Thursday, October 3, at 6:30 pm at Cinema Romano. The film, presented at the Cannes 2023 film festival, stages the portrait of a woman of great strength and determination, who seeks her freedom and emancipation through work. Followed by discussion with Malick Niang (Baobab Couture, Turin), Jimoh Taiwo Fulmi (dressmaker and stylist, owner of the brand Jimoh Fashion Time, Turin), Mioara Verman (president fashion textile clothing CNA Federmoda Torino), Gaetano Renda (CNA Cinema and Audiovisual). Introduced and moderated by Vitaliano Alessio Stefanoni (head of CNA Federmoda Torino).

Methods of access: the event can be accessed by purchasing tickets online or at the Cinema Romano box office.

Direction and screenplay: Rosine Mfetgo Mbakam
Photography: Fiona Braillon
Editing: Geoffroy Cernaix
Casts: Pierrette Aboheu, Karelle Kenmogne, Cécile Tchana, Fabrice Ndjeuthat
Production: Tândor Productions

The town of Douala in Cameroon is in trepidation for the start of the school year. A long queue of customers goes to Mambar Pierrette (the director’s cousin, who plays herself) to have their clothes made for the event. Pierrette is not just a simple tailor; in the neighbourhood she also became the confidante of her clients. Among the many difficulties she has to face, a torrential rain threatens to flood her studio. Pierrette must try to ‘stay afloat’.
Mambar Pierrette (presented at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival) – the new feature film by Cameroonian filmmaker, now living in Belgium, Rosine Mfetgo Mbakam – is the portrait of a female character around whom everything revolves and who has the power to stick in the public’s memory. The film’s absolute protagonist, Pierrette devotes herself with passion and precision to her work, through which she seeks her freedom and emancipation. It is a continuous struggle against the lack of money and the absence of her partner who does not take care of the family. Everything falls on her shoulders. Pierrette, like so many other women, claims the need to be enterprising, to fight and gain independence from a patriarchal system.

Rosine Mfetgo Mbakam (Cameroon) grew up in the working-class area of the capital of Cameroon, Yaoundé. This place specifically helped her creativity blossom. After a period of three years spent working for STV in Douala, she moved to Belgium to attend the INSAS school of cinema. In 2012, she graduated with the movie You Will Be My Ally. In order to be independent, she founded her own Production Company, Tândor Productions. Apart from being a director of feature films and documentaries, she is also a professor and researcher at KASK in Ghent. Mambar Pierrette is her first fiction movie.

Filmography: Les portes du passé (sf doc, 2011), You Will Be My Ally (sf , 2012), The Two Faces of a Bamiléké Woman (2016, doc), Chez Jolie Coiffure (2018, doc), Delphine’s Prayers (2021, doc), Prism (2021, doc), Mambar Pierrette (2023).