- Welcome to POV.
I'm Pete Schwaba, host of PBS Wisconsin's Director's Cut .
Tonight, director Rosine Mbakam takes us to a small salon
in the immigration district of Matonge in Brussels, Belgium
with her documentary film Chez Jolie Coiffure .
Mbakam's lead actor and subject is Sabine,
a hairstylist and West African immigrant
and owner of said salon, called Jolie Coiffure.
Sabine spends her day preening her customers,
most of whom are also West African immigrants.
She and her loyal clientele discuss hair extensions,
soap operas, and relationships, while keeping an eye
toward the local government's immigration policies,
which directly affect all of them.
It also causes some very tense moments
within this safe little space Sabine has created.
One of the elements that make this film fascinating
is Sabine's larger-than-life personality
set against the micro location of this salon
in which Rosine Mbakam has to operate.
Chez Jolie Coiffure is a bonafide chamber piece,
making it, from a scenic standpoint,
difficult to provide any kind of photographic expanse.
But the colorful interaction of Mbakam's characters
give her film cinematic life.
In a recent interview with NPR, the Cameroonian native Mbakam
shared that she finds power in striving
to provide on-screen representation
that is for Africans, by Africans.
The New Yorker calls the innovative Mbakam
"one of the foremost filmmakers of creative nonfiction."
Tonight, we'll see why.
Chez Jolie Coiffure starts now on PBS Wisconsin,
your home for independent film.