Africa Is a Country

Tsofa: A documentary film about Congolese immigrants in Romania

Africa Is a Country Podcast
African Five-a-Side Podcast

Tsofa: A documentary film about Congolese immigrants in Romania

By
Tom Devriendt

Congolese (Brazzaville) filmmaker Rufin Mbou Mikima has uploaded* his latest documentary “Tsofa” to YouTube. The film tells the story of a group of Congolese men, many of them highly qualified university graduates who got offered a 600 euro/month job by a Romanian company to go and work as taxi drivers in Bucharest, the European country’s capital. “To Romanians, black people living in their country must be either football players, or students,” Mbou Mikima notes in one of the film’s opening scenes. He first met the group back in 2008 while working in Bucharest himself. Through the use of the men’s own photos, mobile phone images and other video material, he retraces their initial steps, hopes and expectations, where it went wrong (it did), and what happened after the return of some of them to Congo (Brazza). Conversations, interviews, voice-over and subtitles are in French and Lingala. (No English subs, unfortunately.) The result is a sensible document. Bonus: music by Fredy Massamba. 

* Update: “had” it uploaded; it’s been set to private now. Désolé. Replaced it with an opening scene.

Further Reading

On Safari

On our year-end publishing break, we reflect on how 2024’s contradictions reveal a fractured world grappling with inequality, digital activism, and the blurred lines between action and spectacle.

Rebuilding Algeria’s oceans

Grassroots activists and marine scientists in Algeria are building artificial reefs to restore biodiversity and sustain fishing communities, but scaling up requires more than passion—it needs institutional support and political will.

Ibaaku’s space race

Through Afro-futurist soundscapes blending tradition and innovation, Ibaaku’s new album, ‘Joola Jazz,’ reshapes Dakar’s cultural rhythm and challenges the legacy of Négritude.

An allegiance to abusers

This weekend, Chris Brown will perform two sold-out concerts in South Africa. His relationship to the country reveals the twisted dynamic between a black American artist with a track record of violence and a country happy to receive him.

Shell’s exit scam

Shell’s so-called divestment from Nigeria’s Niger Delta is a calculated move to evade accountability, leaving behind both environmental and economic devastation.

Africa’s sibling rivalry

Nigeria and South Africa have a fraught relationship marked by xenophobia, economic competition, and cultural exchange. The Nigerian Scam are joined by Khanya Mtshali to discuss the dynamics shaping these tensions on the AIAC podcast.

The price of power

Ghana’s election has brought another handover between the country’s two main parties. Yet behind the scenes lies a flawed system where wealth can buy political office.

Beats of defiance

From the streets of Khartoum to exile abroad, Sudanese hip-hop artists have turned music into a powerful tool for protest, resilience, and the preservation of collective memory.