Democratic Republic of the Congo / 1996 / 40mins / Comedy / French

The Draughtermen's Crash tells the story of the president of a fictitious African nation who spends a sleepless night playing checkers with a pot-smoking vagabond who claims to be the all-round champion. However, the rules of the game entail the opponents howling vulgar and foul obscenities at one another. The champion proceeds to insult, and trounce, the President. His reward, and his fate, will not surprise anyone.

Balufu Bakupa-Kanyinda

Balufu Bakupa-Kanyinda was born on 30 October 1957 in Kinshasa. He studied sociology, history and philosophy in Brussels, Belgium. He took courses in filmmaking in France, the United Kingdom and the United States. From 1979 to 1981 he was an instructor in the French Cultural Centre in Lubumbashi. In 1991 he made his first documentary, Dix mille ans de cinéma, and in 1993 released a second documentary on Thomas Sankara. His first fiction film was Le Damier - Papa National Oyé! (The Draughtsmen Clash) made in 1996. He was a member of the board of short films at CNC in France from 1999 to 2001. Balufu was a member of the Input 2000 (International Public Television) in Cape Town, South Africa and a member of CreaTV, UNESCO’s program for televisions in the South between 2000 and 2003. Bakupa-Kanyinda is a writer and a poet as well as a film director. New York University invited him to lecture in 2006 and 2007 at the NYU-Ghana campus in Accra. Balufu is a founding member of the Guild of African filmmakers and producers. Learn More