Lumene: Privatisation

The first chapter of a longer piece of work, Lumene: Privatisation is about the effect of European capitalism on the colonisation of Africa.

David Shongo starts his fascinating and sobering film with a quote from author and politician Aimé Césaire. Césaire’s observation is that the tragedy of African history is how, at the point in time that they first encountered the wider world, it was in the form of a Europe governed by “unscrupulous financiers.” The legacy of that fact is far-reaching and Shongo draws a line from this idea to the way that the Democratic Republic of Congo has been exploited since its first encounters with Belgian colonists. Through dialogues with various scholars, the film considers how mechanisms of control and export have stripped the Congolese people of their own knowledge and agency.

Shongo employs several forms and techniques, combining archival footage and photographic material with observational documentary, talking head interviews, landscape cinema, staged performance and voiceover narration. The bringing together of these elements can sometimes feel somewhat heady, but – vitally – it never compromises the film’s acuity. Recurring elements also aid with this, not least a central conceit through which interviewees react to a decades-old black and white photograph of a bare-chested Congolese woman. The responses to this picture are varied and each, in its own way, contributes to the overall sense of how such imagery has come to define the DRC’s past.

One man notes that the image appears shocking to modern eyes – though it would never have been thought of as such prior to the arrival of the Colonisers. Another man notes that the sarong that the woman wears would not have been traditional garb – so although this photograph seems plausible, it has been partly shaped by the taker. As such, the woman’s bare chest is an active choice, rather than an authentically incidental detail. Through the discussions of this and other images, this initial instalment of Lumene crafts a nuanced reflection on the ‘othering’ inherent in much ethnographic study, and how the ownership of the Congolese story no longer seems to inherently sit with its people. Shongo’s ongoing project feels like an urgent one to follow.

Director, screenplay: David Shongo
Producers: David Shongo, Nanina Guyer
Cinematography: Peter Miyalu
Editing: Derek Simba, David Shongo
Animation: Derek Simba
Sound: Djo Kita, Lenyema Okiteke
Production: Musée Rietberg de Zurich, Sutudio 1960
Venue: DOK Leipzig (International Competition Documentary Film)
In French, Lingala
30 minutes