City of Joy (2016)
★★★★½ — City of Joy (2016)
The Democratic Republic of Congo has been in a state of near-continuous conflict since the mid-1990s, with the eastern regions in particular bearing the worst of it. Sexual violence has been deployed systematically as a weapon of war, used to terrorise communities, displace populations, and, critics argue, to clear the way for the extraction of minerals that feed global supply chains. Against that backdrop, a group of women, doctors, and activists established a real place of refuge and leadership training in South Kivu province. It is that place, and the people who made it, that City of Joy sets out to document.
Released in 2016 and running at a brisk 74 minutes, the film was directed by Madeleine Gavin and produced through Essence Road and Impact Partners, the latter being a company associated with socially engaged non-fiction filmmaking. Three figures sit at the heart of the story: Christine Schuler-Deschryver, a Congolese activist who has spent years organising on behalf of survivors; Dr Denis Mukwege Mukengere, the surgeon who has treated thousands of women for injuries sustained during sexual violence; and V (the playwright and activist formerly known as Eve Ensler), who co-founded the City of Joy centre and whose theatrical background gives the project part of its unusual emotional register. The fourth central presence is Jane Mukunilwa, a student at the centre, whose journey through the programme gives the film much of its human throughline. Gavin's role is largely that of witness rather than interpreter, letting these four figures carry the weight of the story. If you are interested in other documentary work covering corners of the world that rarely get serious screen time, it is worth having a look at my reviews of Nom Tèw and Ben Fogle and the Buried City, both of which take on subjects that mainstream cinema tends to walk past.
Documentaries about conflict and atrocity face a particular problem: how do you show suffering without turning it into spectacle, and how do you show hope without making it feel like a comfortable resolution to something that is not resolved at all? City of Joy, arriving at a moment when the DRC remained largely absent from Western cultural conversation, attempted to thread that needle. For context on other films emerging from the Congo around this period, my review of Sunday in Brazzaville covers another production from the region, and for a very different kind of 2010s documentary, there is also my piece on Next Goal Wins, which shows how non-fiction filmmaking can vary wildly in subject and tone while still finding something genuinely affecting to say. Whether City of Joy succeeds in its own balancing act is exactly the question this review addresses.
A-Z World Movie Tour Democratic Republic of Congo First off... Here is the donation link... gofundme.com/charity/panzi-foundation-panzi-foundation-usa-panzi-hospital-and-foundations City of Joy is not a documentary you watch, it’s one you survive. A raw, unflinching gut punch that lingers long after the credits roll. This isn’t just about the unspeakable violence inflicted on women in the Democratic Republic of the Congo; it’s about the fire that burns in their bellies afterward, the kind of resilience that feels almost supernatural. The accounts here are unbearable in their brutality. Women recounting gang rape, mutilation, and the theft of their children with a calm that chills you to the bone. These stories aren’t told for shock value; they’re testimonies etched in survival. And then there’s the City of Joy itself, a sanctuary where survivors rebuild their lives and train to become leaders. Watching them laugh, dance, and scream into the void is both agonizing and electrifying. It’s a testament to humanity’s capacity to endure, but also a damning indictment of the forces that force them to. The doctors and activists here are saints in human skin, risking everything to stitch together bodies and psyches torn apart by war. And yet, the film pulls no punches in naming the villains: the UN’s complicity, the West’s hunger for conflict minerals, and the global indifference that lets this cycle continue. If you walk away from this film feeling anything less than furious at the causes, you weren’t paying attention. My only gripe is the imbalance. While the focus on trauma is necessary, the film could’ve leaned harder into the triumphs such as the women who reclaim their lives, the communities rebuilt, the quiet moments of joy that make the title feel earned. Still, what it does show is seismic. This isn’t entertainment. It’s a wake-up call. A plea. A battle cry. And above all, a tribute to women who turn unimaginable pain into power. They deserve more than our pity, they deserve our action. I donated to them, as much as I could.
What stays with me, beyond everything else, is the generosity of the women on screen. They owe no one their stories, and yet they share them, with a composure that is more unsettling than any amount of editorial manipulation could be. I think that is part of what makes the imbalance I mentioned sting a little more: the joy is there, you can feel it trying to break through, and I wanted the film to trust it a bit more. But that is a gripe about proportion rather than purpose, and the purpose here is sound and serious. If this one prompts even a handful of people to look up the Panzi Foundation and put their hands in their pockets, it will have done something most films never manage. That, in the end, is a fairly extraordinary thing for 74 minutes of your evening to accomplish.
Rating: ★★★★½ | Year: 2016 | Watched: 2025-06-09
Trailer
▶ Watch the official trailer for City of Joy (2016) on YouTube
Where to watch
Watch in the UK
Stream: Netflix · Netflix Standard with Ads
Physical: Amazon UK · Zavvi
Watch in the US
Stream: Netflix · Netflix Standard with Ads
Physical: Amazon US
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Related on Movies With Macca
More from Congo: Sunday in Brazzaville (2012)
More from the 2010s: Wonder (2017) · Beautiful Boy (2018) · The Witch (2015) · What We Do in the Shadows (2014)
More documentary: Letter from Siberia (1957) · Lessons of Darkness (1992) · Style Wars (1983) · Here and Elsewhere (1976)
