PRODUCTION: Independent
COUNTRY: France
YEAR: 2022
LENGTH: 24′
MADE BY: Anna Roch, Stéphane Rybojad

Congo, where 80% of the population lives on less than one euro a day, has never had a national space programme. At least until Jean-Patrice Keka, an engineer known as the African Einstein, decided that his goal would become building and sending into orbit rockets from his homeland.

If the Americans and Europeans have their astronauts, the Russians their cosmonauts, Keka aims to become the first “galassionaire” to leave Earth. The documentary is a cinematic immersion inside this crazy project, where great ambition clashes with precarious means: homemade fuel, electronic components salvaged from landfills and fuselage parts built from powdered milk cans.