Congo Week Films & Movies
The Basandja Series
Mikuba (Cobalt)
Basandja A Tree Prayer
Lwanzo (Malachite)
Katasumbika (Coltan)
Crisis In The Congo: Uncovering The Truth
Crisis in the Congo: Uncovering The Truth is a 26 minute short that explores the role that the United States and its allies, Rwanda and Uganda, have played in triggering the greatest humanitarian crisis at the dawn of the 21st century. The film is a short version of a feature length production to be released in the near future. It locates the Congo crisis in a historical, social and political context. It unveils analysis and prescriptions by leading experts, practitioners, activists and intellectuals that are not normally available to the general public. The film is a call to conscience and action.
Congo: White King, Red Rubber, Black Death. A movie by Peter Bate
“This excellent documentary tells one of the saddest stories of the late imperialist era, the genocide in the Belgian Congo. The growing need for rubber meant death for millions as the Belgian king himself set up world's most efficient production line for rubber. The cruel systematic murder was carried out for the greed of one man.”
Africa in Pieces (L'Afrique en Morceaux)
Lumumba. 2000, 115 minutes, DVD English Directed by Raoul Peck
“It deftly depicts the clutches that Belgium had on the Congo. It also teases out easily for us the European and American forces that were behind the power the inflict the Congo today. The film was sure to specifically implicate the U.S., rightly so, in the murder of Lumumba. It also lets us in on the problems that were present with the inner conflict of the Congo, between Lumumba, Mobutu and Katanga.”
Soundtrack to a Coup D'Etat
Back to Kinshasa: The Fight for Democracy in the DRC
Three young activists put everything on the line to change the political future of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
“The people always win.”
Access film
Mabele Na Biso (Our Land) - 30 min, HD, Color, DVD, Language: Topoke, French, English Subtitles. 2014.
‘Aid’ and ‘Independence’ are terms that riddle the rhetoric of Western engagement with and imagination of Africa. But what is independence in our increasingly globalized world? Mabele Na Biso (our land) takes us on a journey through time and space to explore one region’s commitment to autonomy and self-determination. Through the unlikely story of a radio that has been modified to run on a generator fueled by locally produced palm oil, this film portrays a different story of African independence – one rooted in a history of defiance that has become a model of community engagement from independent educational systems to free, locally governed healthcare. Beyond offering a portrait into the community of Tolaw/Isangi, Mabele Na Biso invites the viewer to reflect on the true meaning of independence on a continent too often defined by a history of colonialism and domination