Chancelvie

Marc-Henri Wajnberg 2021 82 min.

Chancelvie, 16, has lived on the streets of Kinshasa for half her life. Her daily challenge is to find chores, to eat, to find drinking water, to sleep safely. Shekina, who is two years younger, does not leave her side. Now pregnant, Chancelvie wants to leave the streets to give her son a better life.

They are called "Phasers": homeless girls who roam the streets of Kinshasa in gangs in search of money, food, a safe place to sleep. In between, they help street performers create costumes made from the rubbish they find on the street: old telephones, plastic bottles, rusty car parts, broken mirrors. During colorful parades full of music and dance, they draw attention to their situation. With Chancelvie soon to be a mother, she wants to get off the streets to start a new life with her son. She will have to say goodbye to everyone and everything she knows. Fate put her on the street, will her determination get her out of there?