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DJA BRANKU DJA

Documentary

Director
Natasha CRAVEIRO
Cape verde

Synopsis

Dja branku dja follows Cape Verdean filmmaker Natasha Craveiro on her intimate quest to understand her father’s abandonment. Born after her parents’ separation, a Cape Verdean couple, Natasha explores the motivations of her father, who started a new family in Portugal and tries, to this day, to totally erase the children of his first family from his life.

Her journey takes her from Cape Verde to the Netherlands, where her sister, Patrícia, resides, and to Lisbon, the city where her father built a new life. Once they perceive that there is a lot in their father that Fanon talks about in this books, they explore the historical and social context of Cape Verde, navigating the theories of Cabral, Fanon, and Hooks to analyse their father’s choices and their family history.

The documentary addresses themes such as colonialism, identity, and masculinities, culminating in a possible encounter with their father.

Intention Note

For several years now, I have been haunted by a deep concern about the identity of my people. However, during a stopover in Lisbon in 2024, I had an unexpected revelation when I realised that I was walking on the same ground as my biological father, who has lived in Portugal since the 1970s and has severed all ties with his family in Cape Verde.

What is the connection between the questions that torment me about the identity of my people and my father’s abandonment of my siblings and me? This is precisely what Dja Branku Djava investigates and invites us to reflect on. The film will explore how a personal and family history can represent the immense collectivity of a people.

The film analyses unacknowledged colonial traumas and the ‘illusion of specialness’ of the Cape Verdean people, seeking to understand the continuing influence of the brutality of colonialism in post-colonial Cape Verde.

About us

Les Ateliers de Grand-Bassam is brought to life by Grand-Bassam Project, a non-profit association that embodies excellence in the film and audiovisual industry. The association is an organization of filmmakers, producers and cultural industry professionals from Ivory Coast, the continent and beyond, who help incubate performing arts and audiovisual projects by applying alternative methods of management, production, marketing and distribution in countries across the continent.

Grand-Bassam Project’s main objective is to contribute to the emergence of a solid, internationally competitive African cultural industry, notably through the development of the performing arts and audiovisual sector, capable of contributing to improving the economic impact of culture and consolidating the employability of young people.

Specifically, the objectives of the Grand-Bassam Project are to :

– Implement and consolidate an incubator for cultural projects and professional training workshops for artists and producers from Ivory Coast and other countries on the continent.

– Contribute to the reappropriation by Ivorian cultural players of the conception and governance of cultural policies, in partnership with public decision-makers at national level.

– Contribute to the dissemination of cinematographic works from the continent Formalize and implement a strategy for the implementation of activities, a risk management plan, as well as a monitoring and evaluation plan for all actions.

– Produce and/or co-produce performing arts and audiovisual works and projects for dissemination on the continent and internationally.

– Intensify artistic education initiatives aimed at children, young people and the general public.

Grand-Bassam Project is in the process of launching its program of activities, which include training, production, distribution, image education and consulting for the first edition of the Ateliers de Grand-Bassam. In keeping with its management strategy, the company’s aim is to combine production activities with socio-educational initiatives.

By working closely with sister organizations in Ivory Coast who share the same passion, Grand-Bassam Project will contribute to the future of cinema in Côte d’Ivoire and beyond.

The association capitalizes on the experience acquired over the last ten years by the Ouaga Film Lab, and projects will be carried out with the expertise required to increase the competitiveness of Ivorian and African filmmakers on the world stage.