Black Business

2008, 90 minutes, Digital
France

Language: French

Director: Osvalde Lewat

In 2000, over the course of a year, the Operational Command Unit, a special group of law enforcement personnel put in place by the President of the Republic of Cameroon, created to tackle rampant banditry in the region of Douala, was responsible for the disappearance of more than 1000 people.

Osvalde Lewat examines the repressive nature of the Cameroonian government through a question posed by the Nigerian Nobel Prize winner Wole Soyinka which inquires: “They say Africans are not ready for democracy. So I wonder: have they ever been ready for dictatorship?”

Lewat makes this question her own, preoccupied by these events which she previously ignored, and concerned about the families of the victims who are still battling to find out what happened. With the keen eye of a photographer and the interrogating mind of an investigative reporter, Lewat examines the aftermath in this stunning documentary from 2008.

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