Barber Shop Chronicles

One day, six cities and a thousand stories. From Brussels to Kinshasa, a dive into today's black masculinities.

Sports locker room, political arena and shrink's office: the barbershop is all of these things for the African and Afrodescendant men who frequent them. All over the world, it's one of the few places of refuge where men can drop their masks and stop being on the lookout for violence. They come here to take care of themselves, to talk, to open up.

A setting, six towns, a multitude of life stories, anecdotes, acerbic jokes and philosophical reflections: Junior Mthombeni and Michael de Cock transpose Inua Ellams' play, unanimously celebrated in England by critics and audiences alike, into a French-speaking context. Between documentary and fiction, from Kinshasa to Brussels, Barber Shop Chronicles plunges us into the questioning that runs through today's black masculinities.