Benda Bilili!

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The perfect tonic for the recession blues, Benda Bilili is a heart-warming documentary that follows a band of homeless polio sufferers who have hopes of recording an album and touring Europe.

"Let's put our problems, the fact that we sleep on cardboard, aside until we have an album." Papa Ricky is papering over the 'problems' he and his band have: they're hungry, elderly, homeless, suffer from polio and live in one of the most violent areas of the Congo. Barret and de La Tullaye's camera centres on Papa Ricky, the 'president' of the band (roughly translated as 'Beyond Appearances') whom we first see as he wheels his tricycle to a street corner as hungry kids attempt to stop a 4X4 to beg for money. The band sleep on the streets but despite being surrounded by gangs and poverty their lyrics are always positive and always contain a message for the listener. The tunes are kicking too.

It's not until the directors happen across Roger, a 12-year-old busker who makes some money playing his one-string homemade instrument so his mother can pay her hospital bills, that the band really begins to take shape. Barret and de La Tullaye introduce Roger to Ricky, who is amazed at his prodigious talent but is willing to incorporate any child hanging around into the band to save them from the gangs.

Shot over five years, Barret and de La Tullaye's documentary might be simple in that it's an 'unfortunates overcoming adversity' story that we've seen a thousand times already. But Ricky and co. aren't the kind to allow such obstacles stand in their way and they somehow always keep a sunny demeanour despite the decay around them. Benda Bilili is not a downer: Ricky's smiling face - even when the shelter for the physically disabled burns down and he and his family lose everything - would rouse anyone from a stupor. But this isn't just Ricky's story: watching Roger turn from a smart but insular kid into a talented worldly man, crawling across the floor Jimi Hendrix style at a musical festival in France, is nothing short of pure joy for the viewer.

A rough and ready documentary (the directors admit they don't have money to put a sheen on their film), Benda Bilili is the feel-good film of the year.