The Stopover
Filmmakers Paul Shemisi and Nizar Saleh embark on a journey from the Democratic Republic of Congo to Germany to screen their latest film. However, during a layover in Angola, their trip takes a harrowing turn when airport authorities question the authenticity of their documents. Believing they are being escorted to a hotel to await their return flight home, Paul and Nizar soon realise they are, in fact, being taken to an illegal detention center.
Their testimony offers a stark and unsettling look at the harsh realities faced by Congolese artists attempting to travel freely. This gripping account is juxtaposed against serene images of clouds drifting past an airplane window, highlighting the unsettling reality that unrestricted travel remains a right not afforded to everyone.
“The Stopover (L’Escale) is a quietly devastating reflection on the violence of borders and the precarity of movement for artists from the Global Majority. In this deeply personal account, filmmakers Paul Shemisi and Nizar Saleh, members of Collectif Faire-part, recount their journey from the Democratic Republic of Congo to Germany for a film screening—a cultural exchange abruptly interrupted during a stopover in Luanda. What begins as a routine transit becomes a Kafkaesque ordeal: detained without explanation, accused of holding false documents, and taken to an illegal holding facility, their dignity is suspended in bureaucratic limbo.
The film unfolds not through spectacle, but through restraint. Soft, drifting images of sky and cloudscapes serve as a haunting counterpoint to the stark reality of institutional suspicion and systemic injustice. Through their calm, lucid testimony, Shemisi and Saleh lay bare the cruelty embedded in global mobility systems and the quiet strength required to confront them.
The Stopover is not just a story of travel denied—it is an urgent meditation on visibility, access, and the enduring colonial logics that continue to shape who is allowed to move freely in this world, and who must constantly justify their right to simply exist.”
Film programmer Jacqueline Nsiah chose The Stopover as a response to Elettra Bisogno and Hazem Alqaddi’s Old Child. Nsiah holds a Master’s degree in Visual and Media Anthropology from Freie Universität Berlin and a Bachelor’s degree in African Studies and Politics from SOAS – University of London. She is a film festival, art, and culture consultant. Some of her past roles include work for the Africa Film Festival in Cologne, the Cambridge African Film Festival, and the Festival do Rio. She was co-director and curator of the African film festival UHURU in Rio de Janeiro, programmer for Film Africa in London, and project manager for a film platform at the Goethe-Institut. Jacqueline Nsiah was a member of the selection committee at Berlinale Forum from 2019 to 2023 and co-curated the special programme “Fiktionsbescheinigung”. In August 2023, she was appointed to the selection committee of the Berlinale Competition 2024.
To support displaced people in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kortfilm.be will donate its part of the income made through transactional video on demand sales of L’escale to Goma Actif, an independent citizens’ initiative committed to support their brothers and sisters in need.
Old Child depicts the fragmented story of Hazem, who had to flee Gaza. Throughout this stream-of-consciousness montage of dreams and reminiscences, he searches for order but also for the beauty he left behind.