Café Kuba - Who Dared to Awaken the Dead Memory

Café Kuba - Who Dared to Awaken the Dead Memory is a documentary directed by David Shongo, released on April 22, 2025. The film is conducted in French and set in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo.

Shongo filmed the work during the tense weeks that followed the M23 rebels' capture of Goma, training his attention on the city's café ambulants — mobile coffee vendors who move through Kinshasa's streets as both witnesses to and participants in its daily conversations. Through ambient recordings and a continuously evolving musical score, these anonymous voices are assembled into a portrait of the city's collective memory. The film's central argument is that memory is not fixed: it is retrieved, reinterpreted, and reshaped by present events. The café vendors become conduits through which personal and public histories are shown to be in constant negotiation with contemporary reality.