Burn It Up Djassa

Filmed in the Abidjan neighbourhood of Wassakara, only a few months before the Ivorian civil war broke out, Burn it up Djassa was a labour of love for a collective of actors, writers and technicians, all of whom come from Wassakara and who have created an engrossing, vérité-style fiction at the very edge of their own lived experience. After his father died, Tony (Abdoul Karim Konaté) was pulled out of school by his mother; and when she passed away, he made his way by selling cigarettes on Princess Street, famous in Abidjan for its bars, dance clubs and exciting nightlife. Now twenty-one-years old, Tony is bitterly convinced that his future has been sacrificed, and is desperate for a way out of the ghetto. His older brother Mike (Mamadou Diomandé) has been considerably luckier, having found a job on the police force, while Ange (Adélaïde Ouattara), their younger sister, is also pursuing respectability by learning to become a hairdresser - but she secretly moonlights as a prostitute in