35 Cows and a Kalashnikov

Documentary about the inhabitants, both human and animal, of the Belgian Congo. Released in 1958.

“In the beginning, women lived apart, unaware of the existence of men. Until one day, when the first woman, Toli, who was brave and adventurous traveled deep into the forest. Toli discovered solitary creatures with big muscles who knew how to climb trees and harvest wild honey. When Toli tasted their honey, she thought they should all live together….” That is how one of the creation stories of the Aka people from the tropical rainforest of the Congo Basin goes. Akaya, Kengole, Dibota and their friends and family are hunters-gatherers (and also great story-tellers) who guide us through their world. They explain their origins, myths, and the very spiritual meaning of life.

The region of Lake Turkana, located in Kenya and Ethiopia, is considered to be “the Cradle of Humankind”. Among other finds, primate fossils from millions of years ago have been discovered in the region. But what about the region’s modern inhabitants and their relationship to their environment? Iiris Härmä, whose previous work includes the award-winning Leaving Africa, had the chance of joining Helsinki University’s researchers, Álvaro Fernández-Llamazares and Mar Cabeza, on their pre-pandemic trip to study the Daasanach people’s relationship to their environment through traditional animal tales. The researchers hope that storytelling would help to bridge the gap between people’s everyday lives and conservation efforts.

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.

What do UFOs, witchcraft, Mormons, voodoo, Freemasons, satanism, H.P. Lovecraft, and several other curiosities have in common? You guessed it, aliens! Allow 9th degree Crackpot Bill Schnoebelen to take you on his dark journey from the giant creature-ridden wastes of the Wisconsin fields to sacrificial pain alters on the moons of Saturn and beyond. Recorded during the Ancient of Days conference in Roswell, NM in 2005.

Éthiopie, le mystère des mégalithes

A short film documenting Ethiopian musician Hailu Mergia's life as the leader of the Walias Band in the 1970, his immigration to the United States and his subsequent re-emergence as a performer in 2014.

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.

Innerer Kongo

Tyson Smith, better known as his in-ring name Kenny Omega, took the long and unorthodox road to achieve his dream of pro wrestling stardom. Follow his journey to the top of the wrestling world as he defies not only the odds but people's preconceived ideas of what a professional wrestler can be.

Sara from Zurich was circumcised as a little girl in Ethiopia. This event severely traumatized her. To find her inner peace, Sara decides to look for her circumciser.

Like a real life ROCKY story, this intense feature documentary tells the story of married professional wrestlers Francisco Ciatso and Stormie Lee. Not only is the audience introduced to a world of wrestling that isn't the glitz and glamour of WWE, but the camera becomes intimate with the husband and wife wrestlers as they deal with money and relationship issues.

Mad Dog: l’homme derrière la bête

Forged in the crucible of the Pennsylvania wrestling culture, Sage Karam took an unlikely turn to follow his passion in racing and soon found himself with a ride in the Indianapolis 500 as one of the hottest young drivers in the sport. However, when a tragic accident causes Karam to question everything, he must fall back on the sport that started it all and use wrestling to overcome his most difficult challenge yet.

In 1896, Ethiopia, an African nation, largely armed with spears and knives, defeats a well-equipped and organized Italian military bent on colonization.

Dukas Dilemma

The armies of Fascist Italy conquered Addis Ababa, capital of Abyssinia, in May 1936, thus culminating the African colonial adventure of the ruthless dictator Benito Mussolini, by then lord of Libya, Eritrea and Somalia; a bloody and tragic story told through the naive drawings of Pietro Dall'Igna, an Italian schoolboy born in 1925.

Walter Mittelholzer - Eine Schweizer Pioniergeschichte

A documentary about the end of the colonial era in Africa, portraying acts of animal poaching, violence, executions, and tribal slaughter.

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).