Chez Jolie Coiffure: Discussion Guide The Film: Participants and Key Issues

The Film: Participants and Key Issues

In this collection:

Film Summary

Using This Guide

The Film: Participants and Key Issues

Background Information

Discussion Questions: After Viewing 'Chez Jolie Coiffure'

Taking Action and Resources

Credits and Acknowledgements

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Synopsis

The Jolie hairdresser's shop in Brussels is run by Sabine, a Cameroonian woman who migrated to Brussels. Sabine’s shop is a meeting place and hub for people from the continent of Africa—a community. The film explores tensions of racism, the fear of entering a country undocumented, the loss of leaving home and the hope for something more.

Key Participants

Rosine Mbakam, Cameroonian-born filmmaker living in Belgium
Sabine, Cameroonian-born hair stylist living in Belgium as undocumented immigrant

Key issues

Disorientation and displacement
- Home and belonging
- Community
- Finding yourself and your people in a new space
- Who gets to be an expat? Who is labeled an immigrant?
The white gaze
- Tensions with whiteness and space
- The violence and trauma of colonial whiteness
Disaporic community
Cinematic power and storytelling from the community
The immigrant experience
- The tensions of being free and feeling restricted
- The fear and the weight of being an undocumented immigrant
- The burden of leaving everything behind

Sources

About the author:

Maureen Nicol

Maureen Nicol is a Doctoral student at Columbia University studying Early Childhood Education and the Founder and Director of Camp Story - a pop-up arts camp based on the continent of Africa. Her background is in teaching and education. Maureen is committed to working with young children and educators to ensure every child and teacher knows their value, worth and power. Maureen's research and work interests have always always situated children of color but specifically young Black girls. Her ultimate goal is to make schools safer places for young Black girls with the idea of safety being articulated based on the terms and articulations of Black girls. Maureen is also researching and building curriculum for young girls (specifically young girls of color) on how they can be seen themselves as feminists using arts integration. In her free time, Maureen enjoys going on long walks with her dog, baking and maxing out her library card with good reads.