Return of the Colonial Ghosts in Congo-Brussels

In Raoul Peck’s documentary film essay ‘Lumumba – Death of a Prophet’ (1992), the Congolese liberation politician Patrice Lumumba, who was murdered by Belgian, Western and local secret services, wanders about like a ghost in the former colonial metropolis of Brussels. Europe’s colonial foundations are bundled in the capital: The new film ‘Juju Factory’ (2007) by Balufu Bakupa-Kanyinda, excerpts of which are spooking around on Google or YouTube, addresses this topic.

The anti-colonial film group ‘Remember Restistance’ has the restless ghost of Lumumba respond to Sarkozy’s recent speech held in Dakar: For some, decolonialization began a long time ago, for others, it is just starting. In an archiving, rediscovering and recontextualizing manner, ‘RocketKitKongoKit’ by Craig Baldwin (1986) mixes the story of a German rocket test program in the resource regions in the east of what was then called Zaïre with sci-fi trash drawn from the TV-ethnographic stock on Africa.

Takes place in the context of the project “The Division of the World – Tableaux on the Legal Synopses of the Berlin Africa Conference”.