The Porters

Maman Marie Thérèse : retour à l'essentiel

In June 2010, French actress Marion Cotillard spent a week in the heart of the tropical forests of the Democratic Republic of Congo with members of Greenpeace France and Greenpeace Africa. She delivers in video a strong testimony on the looting of Congolese forests which benefits a few industrial groups, often European.

The modern history of the Congo, the heart of Africa, is a terrifying tale of appalling brutality: how the greedy and incredibly ruthless King Leopold II of Belgium (1935-1909) turned a vast country into his private estate (1885-1908) and how he plundered the land and raped the bodies and souls of its defenceless inhabitants, causing countless victims; and what exactly is the true impact of this often forgotten story of crime and horror today.

An investigation of the emotional and economic value of Africa's most lucrative export: filmed poverty. Deep in the interiors of the Congo, Dutch artist Renzo Martens single-handedly undertakes an epic journey and launches an emancipatory program that helps the poor become aware of what is their primary capital resource: Poverty. After three years of traveling through the Democratic Republic of the Congo he asks the question: "Who owns poverty?

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.

The critically important work by renowned naturalist Claudine Andre to save the endangered bonobo apes of the Congo is presented in this visually stunning feature film.

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.

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.

Le dernier poumon du monde

A visual travel diary on the expedition led by Brondeel in 1934. This expedition to Belgian Congo, by truck, became a testimony to the social conditions of Africans during the colonial era.

Jazz and decolonization are intertwined in a powerful narrative that recounts one of the tensest episodes of the Cold War.

In 2007, scientists from the Wildlife Conservation Society discovered there were an estimated 125,000 western lowland gorillas living in the remote forests of northern Congo. This find offers another chance to protect this endangered great ape and a first look at some unprecedented behaviour – including a knack for using tools. Now primatologist and National Geographic explorer Mireya Mayor ventures into the heart of the jungle to explore the great apes’ secret world. She gets a rare and intimate look into the family life of one gorilla group and witnesses individuals performing feats unexpected in the wild. Spectacularly photographed and featuring new scientific insight, Mystery Gorilla presents startlingly familiar animals like you’ve never seen them before.

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

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

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)

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).

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.

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.

Innerer Kongo

1961 - the year when Swedish UN soldiers are in the crisis-ridden Congo and Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld dies in a plane crash. Swedish film's biggest hit, "Are there angels?", has its premiere with Christina Schollin in one of the roles. Yuri Gagarin becomes the first man in space and the Volvo P 1800 appears on the roads. Ewy Rosqvist is a rally ace and in April the regal ship Vasa is lifted up after 333 years at the bottom of Stockholm's stream. In August, the Berlin Wall is built and outside the Stockholm archipelago, Radio Nord broadcasts music and news.