Kumbuka

Two young Congolese filmmakers are surprised by the enthusiastic reception of Stop Filming Us, a Dutch film shot in Goma by Joris Postema in 2019. That film enters into dialogue with local image makers to ask whether a western perspective on the Congo can do justice to reality, but in the view of those makers themselves, it conversely illustrates the problem perfectly: this production’s perspective also distorts impressions of Congolese reality. In answer to their critique, the Dutch producer made the raw footage available to them so they could edit it into their own film. But can the images – without context – really tell their story?

Filmmaker and lecturer Petna Ndaliko Katondolo was inspired to make this film – which connects the colonial perspective’s legacy, the precolonial history of Congo and elements of Afrofuturism as well as posing the broader question of how to create and portray a decolonial reality – by his two students’ dilemma