COCONUT HEAD GENERATION

Alain Kassanda
Nigeria, France 2023, 89 minutes, color
Documentary film
English, French and Yoruba with English subtitles

THURSDAY 24. OCTOBER 2024 | 16H
MOVIE 2 | MOVIEMENTO

Every Thursday, a group of students from the University of Ibadan, the oldest in Nigeria, organizes a film club, transforming a small lecture hall into a political agora where they develop a critical voice. "Coconut Head Generation", a scornful expression to designate a stubborn and brainless youth, takes on a whole new meaning when the students turn this stigma around to claim their freedom of thought.

Alain Kassanda left the DRC for France at the age of 11. After studying communication, he has been staging cycles of movie showings in various Parisian theaters. He then became the programmer of an art house cinema for five years, in the suburbs of Paris, before moving to Ibadan, in southwestern Nigeria, from 2015 to 2019. There he directed Trouble Sleep, a medium-length film centered on the road, depicted from the perspectives of a taxi driver and a tax collector. The film received the Golden Dove for best film at the Dok Leipzig festival in

2020 and the special mention of the jury at the Visions du réel festival. This was followed by Colette and Justin, a feature film intertwining his family history and the history of the decolonization of the Congo. The film was part of the international competition at Idfa in 2022. Coconut Head Generation is his third film.

Filmstill © Coconut Head Generation