CPH:DOX Documentary Film Festival

APT artists group SUPERFLEX`s short film KWASSA KWASSA is shortlisted for the competition at CPH:DOX 2015 Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival. KWASSA KWASSA is understood as “an unstable boat”. The short film deals with the subject of Mayotte with the title KWASSA KWASSA

The film is portraying a boatbuilder on the island of Anjouan,in the Comoro Islands. The boats are used for fishing but also to transport migrants to the neighbouring island of Mayotte, a French overseas territory and a outermost region of the EU. The island of Mayotte is just 70 kilometers away from Anjouan. The film intends to use the construction of the boat as a carrier of migrants on a dangerous ocean in a complex political setup as well as their symbolic meaning as a carrier of dreams of reaching a better life on the other shore.

KWASSA KWASSA was presented earlier this year as part of Beaufort - Beyond Borders in Belgium. Now it is shortlisted for the DOX’s NEW:VISION AWARD. It will also be shown at the 6th Marrakech Biennale in February 2016 and as part of Cinéma du Réel, International Documentary Film Festival in Paris in March 2016.

A piece of Europe lies in the Indian Ocean. As a relic from the colonial era, Mayotte belongs to France, and people set out from neighbouring islands across the foamy sea to reach Europe's shores just north of Madagascar. The boat has become a metaphor for a world where people, as opposed to goods, can not circulate freely. And where arbitrary lines on a world map can determine the people's fates. The artist group SUPERFLEX inject their subversive and topical contrast fluid into the current refugee and migration issue, allowing a questionable political fantasy to emerge: the idea of Europe. Is there anyone who knows what or who Europe is? Does Europe know its own Arab roots, or its geographic and imaginary boundaries? Our own continent's creation myth is presented as seen from the outside by a stoic narrator, while the production of a fibreglass boat is observed in all its manual steps by a mobile drone camera, whose freedom of movement stands in emphatic contrast to the islanders' desperate escape dreams.

Director: Tuan Andrew Nguyen & SUPERFLEX

Cinematography: Ha Thuc Phu Nam

Drone Pilot: Le Tran Trung

Voiceover: Soumette Ahmed

Logo/Poster: Rasmus Koch Studio

Commissioned by Beaufort Beyond Borders 2015 and Marrakech Biennale 6.

Supported by Danish Art Council.