Benda Bilili! – review

Staff Benda Bilili are a group of Congolese buskers who gather beneath the acacia trees in Kinshasa zoo, where they dream of stardom and a mattress to call their own. This amiable documentary shows how they get there, trailing a ramshackle alliance of middle-aged paraplegics and street kids as they wend their way from African slum to European concert hall. If the journey feels a little stage-managed at times, the film's exuberant side-notes more than make amends, as the music itself plays out as an exuberant blend of blues and African rumba. It's the noise of the discarded: picked up, brushed down and made precious again.