Description:
Benda Bilili! follows an unlikely group of musicians in Kinshasa, capital of the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo. The band, Staff Benda Bilili—in English, “look beyond”—is a group of street musicians composed of four paraplegics and three able-bodied men. The core of the group is four singer/guitarists polio, who use customized tricycles to get around: Ricky, the eldest and a co-founding member of the band; Coco, the band’s composer and co-founding member with Ricky; Junana, the member most disabled by polio, yet the official choreographer; and Coude, a bass player and soprano singer. Joining them is a young and entirely acoustic rhythm section, led by Roger, a teenage prodigy on the satongé, a one-string guitar he designed and built himself out of a tin can. (National Geographic Cinema Ventures)
Production Company
Screen Runner,
Belle Kinoise,
O.L. Production,
Studio 37,
Canal+,
CinéCinéma,
Commune Image,
Dragons Films,
France Cinema Multimedia (FCM),
Society of Authors, Composers and Publishers of Music (SACEM),
Société des Producteurs de Cinéma et de Télévision (Procirep),
Angoa-Agicoa
Release Date Sep 30, 2011
Duration 1 h 25 m
Rating PG-13
Tagline Life... Love... Music
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