When Congo Boy takes the screen at the Piazza Grande during the 79th Locarno Film Festival, it brings more than just a coming-of-age story to the Swiss open-air venue. Directed by Rafiki Fariala, the feature transforms the raw, lived realities of displacement into a striking musical drama that blurs the boundaries between personal memoir and social realism.
The film, a co-production between the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Central African Republic, and France, arrived in Locarno following a high-profile world premiere in the Un Certain Regard section at the Cannes Film Festival. There, newcomer Bradley Viumuna Dembiasite picked up the Best Actor prize, cementing the title’s standing on the international festival circuit.
Set in Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic, the narrative follows 17-year-old Congolese refugee Robert. Left to care for his four younger siblings after their parents are detained, Robert navigates survival while holding tightly to his aspirations of becoming a musician.
The story mirrors Fariala’s own youth. Born to Congolese parents and raised amid regional instability, the filmmaker incorporated direct experiences into the script—including surviving a shooting, sheltering with a military officer, and performing at a UNICEF talent showcase. Fariala’s family was repeatedly displaced by conflict, and the detention of his parents due to documentation discrepancies ultimately forced him into an early adulthood.
Rather than framing refugees through a lens of victimhood, Fariala positions music as an active form of resilience. To capture that authentic energy, the production bypassed traditional casting agencies, conducting street auditions across cultural centers and schools. Dembiasite, an untrained actor who practiced rap away from his family’s oversight, was selected after an insightful improvisation exercise reflecting his own life.
Leaning into his documentary roots, Fariala populated the cast largely with non-professional actors playing variations of themselves—including his real-life aunt and active military personnel—yielding a texture that grounds the film’s musical elements in unvarnished reality.
