Examen d’Etat follows a group of young Congolese high school
students who are about to sit the exam for their National Diploma, the equivalent of the French
baccalaureate, in Kisangani, Democratic Republic of Congo. Dieudo Hamadi’s camera films them as
they prepare for the exam, from the benches of the school that they are regularly ejected from
because they haven’t paid the “teachers’ fees” to the “maquis” (a communal house) where they
gather to revise and the chaotic streets of the city where they spend their time “looking for a
living”.
