NDEGE is an impact documentary shot in Eastern Congo, co-produced between the DRC, Brazil and the UK. The film is part of a wider multidisciplinary project titled RAPPROCHEMENT, led by Belgian designer Saskia Lenaerts, supported by the international foundation Business For Better Society, in collaboration with the NGO Remember Youth for Change.
As civil war escalates, six young tailors document their own lives through shared cameras, transforming an interrupted artistic initiative into an intimate portrait of displacement, resilience and the possibility of dialogue across distant geographies.
WRITTEN, DIRECTED & PRODUCED BY VITORIA DE MELLO FRANCO | Currently at Vd-R Film Market's catalogue.
SYNOPSIS
In Goma, eastern DRC, Alliance, Jacques, Délice, Micheline, Sage and Jospin take part in a collaborative design programe to deconstruct military garments linked to their personal experiences of war, transforming them into new designs. Filmed in November 2024, just two months before a rebel advance on the city, NDEGE traces their daily realities in a geography where displacement is a constant companion. The documentary blends intimate visual diaries recorded by the tailors and their families, documentary records of the program and a narrative structure guided by cinematic exercises developed in dialogue with the participants – documenting their lives before, during, and after the offensive. Through their work, sewing becomes a radical form of reparation and a means to reclaim agency. The film honors the resilience of Congolese youth navigating the space between ongoing conflict and constrained opportunity.