Directed by Rosine Mbakam • 2018 • Belgium, Cameroon

Rosine Mbakam’s cinematic chamber piece unfolds entirely within the bustling confines of Jolie Coiffure, a tiny hair salon in the Brussels district of Matonge that serves as a community hub for West African women. It’s there that Mbakam meets Sabine, the shop’s owner from Cameroon who, fueled by endless cans of soda and cups of McDonald’s coffee, recruits for a tontine (an investment scheme paying each member a yearly annuity), organizes accommodation for a pregnant woman who lacks immigration papers, and, in quieter, more introspective moments, recounts her own harrowing journey to Belgium after working under terrible conditions in Lebanon. What emerges is a highly revealing documentary, capturing the day-to-day lives and concerns of immigrant women in a space they can call their own.