BZV

Without having much evidence for his contention, Everson had the feeling his ancestors came from Angola. He didn’t manage to get a visa and so he went to Congo Brazzaville, which belongs to the same region but thanks to colonial history has become a different country.
Everson had documented the history of the black (Afro American) working class in the USA in a formal/experimental way. In Africa he wanted to show something else: here he filmed people after their work, enjoying their free time. Typical of this was his quest for the local water-skier, whom he wanted to film on the Congo River with the two capitals, Kinshasa and Brazzaville, in the background. Western diplomats even continued water-skiing on the river during the Civil War, but a Congolese water-skier had to be trained for the film. With the aid of several young local film makers (see Les boulistes in this programme), Everson recorded Brazzaville in always idiosyncratic frames. The title BZV refers to the airport code of Brazzaville.