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Welcome to Deadline’s International Disruptors, a feature where we shine a spotlight on key executives and companies shaking up the offshore marketplace. This week, we’re talking to famed French-Congolese musician and dancer Fally Ipupa, affectionately known as the “Prince of Rumba,” and Belgian-Iranian writer-director Hamed Mobasser. The pair are behind upcoming Congolese feature Rumba Royale, a film that is set pre-Congo’s independence from Belgium in 1960. Described as a historical thriller set against the backdrop of Congolese Rumba, the film marks Ipupa’s first acting role. He and Mobasser tell Deadline why the project is a love letter to Congo’s cultural heritage.

Congolese rumba is largely considered one of the most influential genres of African music and dance. It is deep-rooted in Congo’s anti-colonial fight of the 20th century, when the country was under Belgium’s rule until it achieved independence from the European nation in...

Kinshasa Kids

Written by Marc-Henri Wajnberg

Directed by Marc-Henri Wajnberg

Kinshasa Kids introduces a surreal and hostile world right from the start in its very first scenes. It opens with an exorcism ceremony. Amidst the frantic chanting and bombastic drumbeats, village priests intone their spells and try to channel demonic influences out of inflicted children by way of animal gizzards and reptile carcasses. José (José Mawanda) is one of these unfortunate souls. His unsympathetic stepmother has accused him of bringing bad luck to their family, but he runs away before she can subject him to the unsettling process of an exorcism. Jose runs to Kinshasa, where he and thousands of children like him live on the streets, hustling, stealing, and performing to make a living.

The term for kids like José is “shegue,” and this film employs a documentary approach to tell the fictitious story of eight shegues who band...

Aspects Of Japanese Cinema, London

This celebration of Japanese cinema certainly covers all the bases. On the one hand, you've got a rare screening of Kenji Mizoguchi's 1933 silent The Water Magician with live benshi narration and traditional musical accompaniment; on the other, you've got the trash double bill of RoboGeisha and Big Tits Zombie 3D. No extra narration necessary. You can split the two-month event into four main elements: back-to-back mini-retrospectives of three towering directors – Kenji Mizoguchi, Takeshi Kitano and Akira Kurosawa – and to start with, a round-up of contemporary Japanese women's cinema, including new arrivals like rock sisterhood tale Nana and eccentric comedy Instant Swamp, plus a colourful look into Tokyo's adult-entertainment industry with Lala Pipo and a special cosplay screening of cult dress up hit Kamikaze Girls.

Barbican Screen, EC2, Tue to 19 Dec

Discovery Film Festival, Dundee

It's supposed to be an educational festival of international cinema...

So, the 54th BFI London Film Festival starts in a couple of weeks time (13th to 28th October). Sadly, given its timing, most of the films that screen at Lff tend to have already been written about ad nauseum, having made the festival circuit from earlier in the year, starting with Sundance and making the rounds at other top fests like Cannes, Berlin, Venice and Toronto. Sadly, unlike Venice and Toronto, which are both late in the festival circuit calendar but slightly earlier, Lff doesn’t tend to have any huge world premieres that get the Oscar buzz started… Ho hum. None of this stops tickets being sold out for some screenings within a week of going on sale to the public, and that happened earlier today! After all, Lff tends to bill itself as an audience festival, and what cinephile doesn’t want to be first in line to...