Discoveries from Democratic Republic of the Congo (Kinshasa) World Cinema

Rumba Royale is an historical thriller set in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

A film about the gift of re-membering what was dis-membered by the colonial project. Dreamscapes, ritualised practices of sharing and ancestral rhythms render visible the previously invisible lines that once held communities and ecosystems in sacred balance.

In the claustrophobic depths of the Mutoshi mine in Katanga (DRC), Ndjimu follows The Rememberers – a community labouring in unsafe and brutal conditions to extract coveted minerals from the ancestral soils to feed global tech empires, to their own detriment.

Tomi is preparing to regain his freedom when he is confronted with an uncertain future. In his projection, he is alone without family or a home. In the quest for happiness, he will meet a special person and renew his passion.

After spending years in Belgium, a young Congolese man returns to his birthplace of Kinshasa to confront the intricacies of his family and culture.

George Foreman vs. Muhammad Ali, billed as The Rumble in the Jungle, was a heavyweight championship boxing match on October 30, 1974, at the 20th of May Stadium (now the Stade Tata Raphaël) in Kinshasa, Zaire (now Democratic Republic of the Congo), between undefeated and undisputed heavyweight champion George Foreman and Muhammad Ali. The event had an attendance of 60,000 people and was one of the most watched televised events at the time. Ali won by knockout in the eighth round.

The Congolese-Belgian artist Baloji looks at Congolese pygmy wedding traditions.

An artist runs out of paint days before an exhibition. Desperate for money, he decides to run a hustle: he swaps his brushes for a Bible and heads to the market, performing as a preacher. As he tries this new performance, his path crosses with a dancer.

In the cobalt mining areas of Katanga in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), babies are being born with horrific birth defects. Scientists and doctors are finding increasing evidence of environmental pollution from industrial mining which, they believe, may be the cause of a range of malformations from cleft palate to some so serious the baby is stillborn. More than 60% of the world’s reserves of cobalt are in the DRC and this mineral is essential for the production of electric car batteries, which may be the key to reducing carbon emissions and to slowing climate change. In The Cost of Cobalt we meet the doctors treating the children affected and the scientists who are measuring the pollution. Cobalt may be part of the global solution to climate change, but is it right that Congo’s next generation pay the price with their health? Many are hoping that the more the world understands their plight, the more pressure will be put on the industry here to clean up its act.

The Democratic Republic of Congo has endured 20 years of devastating violence. Rape has been used as a weapon of war to destroy community and access precious minerals. Congo is often referred to as “the worst place in the world to be a woman.” "City of Joy" tells a different story of the region. The film focuses on Jane, a student at a center where women who have suffered unimaginable abuse join together to become leaders. We also meet the founders of the center: a devout Congolese Doctor, a Congolese activist, and a radical N.Y. playwright. The film weaves between joy and pain as these individuals band together to demand hope in a place so often deemed hopeless.

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a country marked by colonial exploitation and ongoing conflict, the education system faces a deep crisis. Through testimonies and moments of animation, a portrait emerges of a society where education remains one of the few paths toward hope. The okapi becomes a symbol of connection and resilience, embodying the possibility of a different future.

Photographer and visual artist Sammy Baloji’s fascinating film essay explores the Democratic Republic of Congo’s colonial history and its ecological significance. Drawing on research from the 1930s, the film highlights the Congo Basin’s vital role in consuming carbon dioxide and shaping global environmental balance over a century.

Thirty years of war, seven million displaced, ten million dead. A plunge into the chaos of the city of Goma, capital of North Kivu in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Rooted in the oral tale recounted by the Tetela in Sankuru, Democratic Republic of Congo, this story explains how it came to be that the Fox ate the Chicken, the Chicken ate the Termite, the Termite ate the Stick and the Stick ate the Toad, when the Toad arrives at his in-laws’ home and is served a meal with a single spoon, sparking off a terrible row!

For 25 years, the Democratic Republic of Congo has been ravaged by a war that has largely been ignored by the media and the international community. The victims run into the hundreds of thousands, if not millions. The perpetrators of these crimes are countless: rebel movements, but also armies, those of the Congo and neighboring countries.

The film uses the 1969 American Apollo 11 mission that landed a man on the moon as the year and the backdrop for an interesting glimpse at middle class Congolese lives—that of a teacher, a doctor and an artist.

In a Kinshasa house, a visit unfolds between two couples where everything seems in place, yet something is slightly off. At the center, Pamela navigates the expectations of love and the roles imposed on her. Fragments of a recent event begin to surface, unsettling the present.

Based on true events, a young girl's life is turned upside down when her grandmother's strange behaviour sparks fears of witchcraft. As her family struggles to reconcile illness with the supernatural, she must navigate the streets of Kinshasa in order to protect the grandmother she knows and loves.

Max wakes up one morning and discovers that his wife Hélène has left him in his sleep, without a word, taking their two children with her. He doesn't understand. The nights drag on, his demons get involved, he chooses to face them and to anchor himself in reality. He probes his feelings, revisits from top to bottom the artifice of his life. Max ends up rediscovering his love for Hélène and decides to win her back. But isn't it already too late?

French couple Jean and Marie go on their honeymoon in Jean's hometown in Africa. They end up in the middle of a tense political situation as soon as they arrive and must spend the night in hiding. Jean begins to take on some of his father's old French colonialist attitude, which comes into drastic conflict with their current situation. As they struggle to stay alive, Marie rethinks her marriage to Jean.

Meli finds Chirac, and the two lovers are very happy to meet up after a long time and decide to catch up. The adventure becomes hard to continue when Chirac announces to his sweetheart that he has come back to marry her as promised, but she has already married another man!

In Kivu (Democratic Republic of Congo), one of the most violent regions in the world, a group of women arrives at Panzi Hospital after being gang-raped by the guerrillas in the area who control the mineral resources. Their psychological treatment before reintegration confronts them with the dilemma of accepting the babies they have given birth to as a result of the rapes, finding in the question of motherhood a way to resist.

Kongo lives in Brussels, in the « Matongé » district on which he is writing a book. His editor wants a kind of traveller’s book spiced with ethnic ingredients. However, the writer is inspired by the vision of the complex and tormented souls that he meets anywhere, night and day. Kongo Congo follows invisible threads connected to Congolese history and its ghosts. How is it possible to hold on in this chaotic history? By having «juju», selfconfidence, and Beatrice’s love.

Nestor, Aaron, Benjamin and Rafiki are economics undergraduates at the University of Bangui. Navigating between the overcrowded classrooms, the petty trades that allow students to survive, bribery lurking everywhere, Rafiki shows us what students lives are like in the Central African Republic, a shattered society where the youth keeps dreaming for a brighter future for their country.

Two young rocket engineers, Nestor and Isaac, struggle against the economic and political realities of their country. Propelled by the memory of past African dreamers and a resilient belief in their country, they work on building the first Congolese space program. The two young engeneer student have moved to Kinshasa to join Keka’s space program. As they find themselves visited by the spirit of their predecessor: Edward Nkoloso the first "Afronaut".

INFINITE TROLLING toys with the infinite scroll that fuels social media – and this erratic stream of content as a path to desensitization. Oscillating between narratives, the film moves through a series of disjointed yet intertwined vignettes, finding a disquieting sense of the surreal in the art of assemblage.

Kisolo is one of a thousand variants of the global Ur-game, Mancala, a “sowing” game sometimes still played with seeds even when using a board. Its timeless agrarian gestuary follows the combinatorial rules of what is also a “count and capture” game. After ruining several carving knives on digging holes in the hard orange earth, two players squat either side of four rows of six (the third-century pits under a stele in Ethiopia have three rows). First, three stones to each hole, then the players take turns, gravely reciting numbers. The focus is on hands hanging loose and expectant or smoothly reaching, scooping, and distributing – never a moment’s hover – until one player has, somehow, captured all the stones.

A young man with dreams of pursuing a career in music moves form his small village to the capital. Along the way he falls head over heels for a woman - the same woman his boss is also pursuing for his own reasons.

In Kinshasa, despite preparations for the construction of Africa's largest power station, the population often finds itself without electricity. The city's inhabitants, struggling for reliable power access, ingeniously utilize makeshift lights as essential means to survive their daily lives and maintain their ability to celebrate.

In the heart of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Furaha and Venantie, forge an unbreakable bond after experiencing unimaginable trauma. Together, they ignite a movement of empowerment that transcends their pain and inspires an entire community to reclaim their future.

This documentary offers the reflections of filmmakers shot at FESPACO 1991. Djibril Diop Mambéty, David Achkar, Moussa Sene Absa, Mambaye Coulibaly, Idrissa Ouedraogo, Mansour Sora Wade... express their faith in the eternity of African cinema.

Four friends roam the streets, bars and boxing clubs in a bubbling and bewitching big African town.

Moseka, a young woman from Zaire, travels to Belgium to study. With her braided hair and traditional clothes, she is the laughingstock of her fellow students who strive to look European, adopting wigs and European clothing. The film tells of the depersonalization of young Africans when they enter into contact with the European culture.

A journey between hope and dystopia in a hallucinated Kinshasa, from the culture of the hair salon to futuristic solitary clubbing, from an urban parade to a dictator's sense of glory to a modern western in the style of Takeshi Kitano.

The city of Goma at night. Two beings of light interact with eachother and the public in the unlit streets.

Tozoom site Africa conceals treasures that ignite the imagination of travellers, but also that of all... Who has not dreamed of this magical continent and of living adventures there, Clover tomas when he was well seated in its sometimes somewhat mischievousness, this work envelops you in a very friendly warmth and manages to conquer it.

Forest dwellers pound drums upholding rituals while urbanites cry "Progress!" More plunder the land's riches but newly defiant ones shout back.

Kin Kiesse is a 1982 documentary film about "Kin" (Kinshasa), the capital of Zaire, and the capital of paradoxes and excesses, commentated on by one of its naïf artists, the painter Chéri Samba. We discover the "Kin" of night clubs, high buildings, bicycle-taxis, shoe shiners and hairdressers, the "Kin" of poor neighborhoods, but, above all, the "Kin" of music, where all the genres rub elbows, from beer party brass bands to the rumba to traditional dances, without leaving out the in-fashion bands of the time.

Nia, Okelia, and Shanti are triplets who live in Kinshasa. Okelia is different from her sisters because she has albinism. The three sisters are so passionate about the marine world that their father decides to move to Moanda, a Congolese village by the ocean, where they will make a wonderful discovery. Before leaving the city, they pay tribute to Patrice Lumumba at his memorial.

A stowaway attempts to "illegally" enter into Europe. Shortly after he leaves his boat at the port, a black policeman discovers him and chases him through the city. Chaplinesque short film about Fortress Europe.

Bangui, Central African Republic. 17 year-old Robert dreams of a career in music, but civil war is tearing the country apart. When both his parents are thrown into prison, he is left to look after his four younger siblings on his own, juggling daily life, odd jobs, school exams and concert stages, determined to follow his dream.

I am Chance follows the microcosm of a group of street savvy girls in the surprisingly bright, pop and artistic megacity of Kinshasa. Astute, sassy and resilient, Chancelvie and her friends take on the world, fighting and nurturing, stealing and sharing, turning tricks and making art. Vibrant and exuberant, Kinshasa itself becomes a character in the film, combining its voice with that of the girls.

The film follows a female protagonist who sits for a posed photography session. The session takes an unexpected turn, spiraling into a series of dance-inspired dreamscapes, blurring projections of the mind with historical fragments and the external, waking world.

Mweze Ngangura takes us to his native region, Ngweshe, one of he six Bushi kingdoms in the province of Kivu, in Eastern Zaïre. In this region of the Great Lakes, wealth is mesured in heads of cows and in length and breadth of banana plantations. Intermixed with commentaries of the director, are those of the King, Mwami Pierre Ndatabaye Weza III, divulging the daily realities of this traditional African kingdom as it confronts the modern world. The third narrator, Makura, is a storyteller. This guardian of traditional knowledge and collective memory teaches the children the proverbs, customs and mythologies of the region. « The King, the Cow and the Banana Tree » sheds light on the dramatic events unfolding in neighbouring Rwanda, particularly in a prophetic sequence where a seer predicts calamities that will take place in the countries surrounding Ngweshe.

Rodrigue and Reine live with their three children in Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic. They make their living from a meager yield of cassava flour and are very active in the local church, where the battle between God and Satan is central, and believing in evil spirits, curses and witchcraft is common.

61 years after his assassination, Patrice Lumumba returns to his country. "Congo returns to Congo" as one of his children said. Lumumba was a nationalist leader who intended to use his country's enormous wealth for the benefit of his people. He became the first Prime Minister in the history of Congo on June 30, 1960, when the country gained its independence after 80 years of Belgian colonial rule. Seven months later, he was assassinated in Katanga province with two of his best political allies: Joseph Okito and Maurice Mpolo. Their bodies were dissolved in sulfuric acid and only one of Patrice Lumumba's teeth remained. This "relic" was taken from Lumumba's corpse and kept in secret by a police commissioner until his death in 2000. The assassination of the nationalist and anti-colonialist leader was followed by the advent of the dictator Mobutu, who was able to remain in place until 1997, thanks to Western support.

Documentary about Zaire's football team at the 1974 FIFA World Cup and what happened to the players afterwards.

Papy finds out he has AIDS. His wife and family reject him, he can no longer go to work and has to take care of his children. To be able to obtain the antiretrovirals, a member of his family must accompany him, but he has no one. He turns to desperate measures to get his medicine.

The story revolves around seven-year-old Londri Mingolo's flight from the Congo to Germany and his problems settling into German society.

Torn from childhood to become a soldier, Alain reveals the invisible scars of war and his struggle to find his place in a world that has cast him aside.

Inspired by the African masks at the Museum Rietberg in Zurich, the Swiss artist Lukas Stucky designed a mask and asked the Congolese artist Rita Mukebo to give it the status of an artwork. In a short film produced by the Centre d’Art Waza Lubumbashi, Mukebo tests the meaning of the mask by visiting the Tshokwe community, the director of an art museum, a university professor and others.

Alone on her bed, Bénédicte, a thirty-year-old woman, listens religiously to the tube ZERO by Papa Wemba - dead, recently on the FEMUA festival scene in Abidjan. In this candle-lit room, her eyes moisten with tears as her thoughts go into her fourteen years spent in the mythical group of the deceased (VIVA LA MUSICA) before focusing on her fears and on its financial situation. A few days later, Bénédicte, who is known as a dancer, goes to a television station where she talks about her experience alongside the one whom the journalist calls "THE SCHOOLS MASTER " and affectionately calls him "PAPA" (DAD) Before announcing his plan to remix his tube ZERO. For completing her perilous project, whose aim is both to pay tribute to her former boss and launch her career as a singer, Bénédicte was accompanied by Moli - a renowned vocal coach and Tosha - a masterpiece of VIVA LA MUSICA orchestra.

With all the charm of flick soccer, Subbuteo, pinball, and other miniature passions, this is played on a small circle of stubby broken-off sticks like a frontier fort buried in the sand, enclosing two facing, immobile teams also made of little sticks. Resembling two giants crouched over cavernous goals, the competitors take quickfire turns thumbing a marble, careful not to touch anything else. The successful marble shoots in from the side or arcs with precision through the air. For a penalty, it is balanced on top of the defending palisade. Close-ups on fans, rapt faces and dusty feet, bare or in the moulded sandals that protect knees as often as feet. The ring of attention is bisected by a chicken scooting straight through people, the exact centre of the arena, people, and out, as if performing a dare.

A fratricide war between two tribes in the Congo in the pre-colonial period: the Tsembo and the Tsoundi. Their alliance is guaranteed by the marriage of the son and daughter of the tribes' respective rulers, but the infidelity of the wife, Hakoula, who gives herself to a slave, sparks off a war of terrible bloodshed