Cahier Africain

It all started with a small school exercise book. The pages were chequered with the courageous testimonies of 300 Central African women, girls and men, revealing what Congolese mercenaries did to them between October 2002 and March 2003 in the wake of armed conflict. They gathered together their testimonies to record the crimes committed against them. Cahier Africain is a long-term observation that begins accompanying its protagonists in the village of PK 12 in 2008. But while they try to master their difficult daily lives with confidence and in The Hague the prosecution of crimes committed during the last war is still in progress– the next war breaks out in the Central African Republic. The film bears witness to the collapse of a country torn apart by civil war and coup d'etats.