Stop Filming Us: a movie set in the RDC

 "Stop Filming Us" is one of the selections at the Mill Valley Film Festival this year. 

It's a documentary set in the city of Goma in the northeastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo, on the shore of Lake Kivu, close to Rwanda. 

It's a multi-faceted view not only of the town and its inhabitants, but also how so many Sub-Saharan Africans have to grapple with the consequences of colonization, Young Congolese discuss the need to "decolonize one's brain," and the fact that many traditions, legends, and more have already disappeared from the collective mind.
The issue of the multitude of foreign NGOs in Goma is also brought up.

From their website:

Screening note: This digital screening is available to view between 12:01am PT on Friday, October 9, and 11:59pm PT on Sunday, October 18, and is available to ticket buyers and passholders within the United States.

 

Dutch documentarian Joris Postema sets out to show life in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s troubled northeast beyond the bleeding headlines of western news. What he ends up with is a stirring reflection on the complexities of cross-cultural representation. While training the lens on the former Belgian colony’s own image-makers—artists, photographers, and other filmmakers—Postema also flips the script to capture the frank, spontaneous exchanges among his largely local crew about what they should be shooting. Problems immediately arise with seemingly innocuous decisions like where they each should sit for a discussion and persist into bigger decisions like where to point the camera and who gets to ask the questions. The Congolese themselves are divided about the value of this, as they openly confess, but for Postema’s intended audience of do-gooder westerners, it’s a real eye-opener. As one crew member puts in the easiest terms imaginable, "the problem is not here with us but there with you." TV5Monde | CFI French Cinema Sponsor


Via the Festival, you can only watch it until October 18, and have to live in the United States. However, I'm sure it is and/or will be available on other platforms.


It's a thought-provoking film, well worth the watch for all those interested in the future of the African continent.

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