Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat

Jazz and decolonization are intertwined in a powerful narrative that recounts one of the tensest episodes of the Cold War. In 1960, the UN became the stage for a political earthquake as the struggle for independence in the Congo put the world on high alert. The newly independent nation faced its first coup d'état, orchestrated by Western forces and Belgium, which were reluctant to relinquish control over their resource-rich former colony. The US tried to divert attention by sending jazz ambassador Louis Armstrong to the African continent. In 1961, Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba was brutally assassinated, silencing a key voice in the fight against colonialism; his death was facilitated by Belgian and CIA operatives. Musicians Abbey Lincoln and Max Roach took action, denouncing imperialism and structural racism. Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev intensified his criticism of the US, highlighting the racial barriers that characterized American society.

2024-09-11 | fr

Dark of the Sun

A band of mercenaries led by Captain Curry travel through war-torn Congo across deadly terrain, battling rival armies, to steal $50 million in uncut diamonds. But infighting, sadistic rebels and a time lock jeopardize everything.

1968-02-08 | en

Innerer Kongo

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Across the World with Mr. and Mrs. Johnson

As if they were showing their film to a few friends in their home, the Johnsons describe their trip across the world, which begins in the South Pacific islands of Hawaii, Samoa, Australia, the Solomons (where they seek and find cannibals), and New Hebrides. Thence on to Africa via the Indian Ocean, Suez Canal, North Africa, and the Nile River to lion country in Tanganyika. (They are briefly joined in Khartum by George Eastman and Dr. Al Kayser.) Taking a safari in the Congo, the Johnsons see animals and pygmies, and travel back to Uganda, British East Africa, and Kenya.

1930-02-01 | en

Africa Blood and Guts

A chronicle of the violence that occurred in much of the African continent throughout the 1960s. As many African countries were transitioning from colonial rule to other forms of government, violent political upheavals were frequent. Revolutions in Zanzibar and Kenya in which thousands were killed are shown, the violence not only political; there is also extensive footage of hunters and poachers slaughtering different types of wild animals.

1966-02-11 | it

Empire of Dust

Lao Yang is head of logistics of the group. He is responsible for the equipment, building materials and food (mainly chickens) to arrive in the isolated Chinese prefab camp. The Congolese government was supposed to deliver these things but so far the team hasn't received anything. With Eddy (a Congolese man who speaks Mandarin fluently) as an intermediate, Lao Yang is forced to leave the camp and deal with local Congolese entrepreneurs, because without the construction materials the road works will cease. What follows is an endless, harsh, but absurdly funny roller coaster of negotiations and misunderstandings, as Lao Yang learns about the Congolese way of making deals.

2011-10-18 | fr

Lotoko

Short ethnographic documentary showing a leopard dance based upon footage shot by director Luc de Heusch in Congo in 1954 reassembled by Damien Mottier (Université Paris Nanterre) and Grace Winter (CINEMATEK).

2023-03-22 | fr

Nkumi, everyday life

Short ethnographic documentary showing some everyday life scenes based upon footage shot by director Luc de Heusch in Congo in 1954 reassembled by Damien Mottier (Université Paris Nanterre) and Grace Winter (CINEMATEK).

2023-03-22 | fr

Congo: A Journey to the Heart of Africa

The Democratic Republic of the Congo is a vast, mineral rich country the size of Western Europe. Alastair Leithead takes an epic journey from the Atlantic Ocean to the far reaches of the Congo river to explore how history has shaped the Congo of today and uncover the lesser told stories of this beautiful, if troubled country. In the largest rainforest outside of the Amazon he comes face to face with its gorillas and hunts with pygmies, he travels into the heart of the Ebola outbreak with United Nations peacekeepers, and explores the cobalt mines which will drive our electric cars of the future.

2019-01-05 | en

Kisangani Diary

Along an overgrown rail track south of the Zairean town Kisangani, a UN expedition together with a handful of journalists discover “lost” refugees. They are eighty thousand Hutus from far away Rwanda, the last survivors of three years of hunger and armed persecution that transpired throughout the vast Congo basin. The Hutu-refugees leave the forest, gathering in two gigantic camps. Hundreds of refugees die every day from diseases and malnutrition The Rwandans are promised repatriation with airplanes out of Kisangani. The film traces those refugees into the heart of the rainforest, and the hopeless attempts to help them.. But only four weeks later, the unprotected UN-camps are again attacked by machine-gun fire, deliberately massacred by factions of the rebel army (AFDL) of today’s Democratic Republic Congo. Eighty thousand men, women and children disappear once again back into the jungle. (jedensvet.cz)

1998-02-20 | en

The Seven Red Berets

Deep in the African Congo, revolution rages and explosive documents have fallen into the hands of nationalist guerillas. The Red Berets are the government's only hope of retrieving papers which could change the course of the war.

1969-03-20 | it

The Rhythmatist

A musical oddessy through the heart of Africa in search of the roots of Rock & Roll.

1985-01-01 | en

John Bishop's Gorilla Adventure

John Bishop encounters one of the most endangered animals on Earth, and discovers they and his family have more in common than he ever imagined. Filming in the jungles of Rwanda for John Bishop’s Gorilla Adventure, the comedian realises adolescent male mountain gorillas are just like his teenage sons – bulging muscles but no sense. Plus they fart, flirt and pick their noses. We follow John as he joins a group of vets who have dedicated their lives to saving the, sadly, precious few mountain gorillas left in the wild rugged mountains and valleys between the borders of Rwanda, Congo and Uganda, which were made famous to UK viewers by David Attenborough’s iconic sequence filmed among them in the 1970s.

2015-12-28 | en

The Siege of Jadotville

Irish Commandant Pat Quinlan leads a stand off with troops against French and Belgian Mercenaries in the Congo during the early 1960s.

2016-09-19 | en

Operation Leopard

In May 1978, the mining town of Kolwezi in Katanga, Zaire (now Democratic Republic of Congo, the former Belgian Congo) is under attack from a group of communist guerillas coming from nearby Angola. The Europeans who work for the Belgian mining company and the Blacks who live in the town are taken as hostages by the invaders, who start a blood bath, shooting Europeans as well as Africans. Many of the Europeans being French, the French decide to organize a counter-attack, and to send a Regiment of Paratroopers from the Foreign Legion. The movie follows the stories of Delbart, a former non-commissioned officer, who was about to go back to France with his African wife and his child, Damrémont, who was Delbart's replacement, Bia, a Zairian doctor, and Annie, an American married to a Belgian engineer as well as Non com Legion officer Federico and the French Ambassador and the Military Attaché.

1980-01-09 | fr

Hope Has A Name

In urban America, the bush of Africa, the war zone of the Congo, and in closed nations there are women who are living outside their own cultures, society, and comfort level to care for orphans, build schools, liberate addicts, feed the poor, and love the broken. These ordinary women are reaching into hopeless situations of people and creating hope.

2017-11-22 | en

Lumumba: Death of a Prophet

Documentary about African political leader Patrice Lumumba, who was Prime Minister of Zaire (now Congo) when he was assassinated in 1961.

1991-11-01 | fr

Congo in Four Acts

A quartet of powerful, hard-hitting short films that lay bare the disturbing reality of everyday life in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

2010-03-18 | en

The Enclave

Commissioned for the Irish representation at the 55th Venice Biennale in 2013, The Enclave is an immersive, six-screen video art installation by Irish contemporary artist Richard Mosse. Partly inspired by Joseph Conrad’s modernist literary masterpiece Heart of Darkness, the visceral and moving work was filmed in the Democratic Republic of Congo using 16mm colour infra-red film, which captures otherwise invisible parts of the spectrum. The resulting imagery in Mosse’s work is hallucinatory and dream-like with the usual greens of jungle and forest replaced by shimmering violet. The Enclave depicts a complicated, strife-ridden place in a way that reflects its complexity, using a strategy of beauty and transfixion to combat the wider invisibility of a conflict that has claimed so many.

2013-06-11 | en

The Vocation

Sven Nykvist, best known as Ingmar Bergman cinematographer, made this film as a tribute to his father who was a missionary in Kongo in the early 20th century. The story of his father Gustav Natanael Nykvist is told through his own photos, letters, and films. Director & cinematographer: Sven Nykvist. Narrators in the English dubbed version: Liv Ullmann & Sean Connery. Produced by Ingmar Bergman (Cinematograph AB). Digitally restored in 2022.

1974-04-02 | sv