Trouble Sleep with Alain Kassanda

Trouble Sleep (the title is borrowed from a Fela Kuti song) immerses us in the rich urban landscape of a contemporary African city, saturated with sounds and movements, struggling with autophagous impulses, where Men dream of another fate, which is less bitter, by drinking in the evening, before plunging back the next day into the incessant daily struggle of all against all.
—Emmanuel Chicon, Visions du Reel

Kassanda’s freewheeling urban portrait follows two young men, Fred and Akin, as they navigate the crowded roadways of Ibadan, Nigeria’s third largest city. Engineering graduate Fred is beginning a new job as a taxi driver, while Akin patrols a busy intersection collecting tax for the National Transport Union. As they traverse the frenetic streets, the systems and networks that underlie the city begin to be exposed, revealing the order that lies beneath all the noise and apparent chaos. Punctuated by exuberant musical sequences, Trouble Sleep is a dynamic, impressionistic city symphony capturing Ibadan’s distinct rhythms from a street-level perspective.

Born in Kinshasa, Alain Kassanda left the DRC for France at the age of 11. After studying communication he has been staging cycles of movie showings in various Parisian theaters and film festivals since 2003, including the Brattle Theatre’s “Ghett’Out Film Festival” and “BAM” in New York. Alain has also been the film programmer for Les 39 Marches in Sevran, near Paris, for five years. Trouble Sleep is his first film, shot in Ibadan, Nigeria, where he has lived from 2015 to 2019.

This special Urban Planning Film Series event is generously co-sponsored by MIT’s UrbanAfrica and the Department of Urban Studies & Planning’s International Development Group.

Note: Unfortunately, in order to enter campus, Non-MIT visitors must registered via MIT's TimTickets system.