Congo River, Beyond Darkness
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Congo River, Beyond Darkness
''Congo River, Beyond Darkness'' (french: Congo river, au-delà des ténèbres) is a 2005 film by Thierry Michel examining the Congo River in Africa. The film premiered at the 2005 Festival International du Film Francophone de Namur. Synopsis The film takes us from the mouth to the source of the second largest river basin in the world, that of the Congo River (the largest is the Amazon). All along its 4371 km, we discover places that have seen the turbulent history of this country, while archives remind us of the mythological figures that created its destiny: explorers such as Livingstone and Stanley, the colonial kings Leopold II and Baudouin and leaders such as Lumumba, Mobutu Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu Wa Za Banga (; born Joseph-Désiré Mobutu; 14 October 1930 – 7 September 1997) was a Congolese politician and military officer who was the president of Zaire from 1965 to 1997 (known as the Democratic Republic o ... and Kabila. References External links * * ...
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Thierry Michel
Thierry Michel (born 13 October 1952) is a Belgian film director, mostly making social and political documentaries. His office and company ''Les films de la passerelle'' is located in Liège, where he works with the producer Christine Pireaux. Over a twenty-year period he has made a series of documentaries on different aspects of Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo). Taken together his films provide a unique overview of the social, economic and political life of the country. Belgium Thierry Michel was born in Charleroi in Belgium on 13 October 1952 in an industrial region called "The Black Country". At the age of 16 he began cinema studies at the Institute of broadcast arts in Brussels. While there he experienced the last student upheavals of 1968. He became one of the leaders of an emerging Walloon cinema movement. His 1982 ''Chronique d'une saison d'acier'' (''Chronicle of a steel season'') is set in the mining and steel region of his childhood. This "factional" f ...
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Lokua Kanza
Lokua Kanza (born April 1958) is a singer-songwriter from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He is known for his soulful, folksy sound. Biography Lokua Kanza was born Pascal Lokua Kanza in Bukavu in the province of Sud-Kivu, in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo. He is the eldest of eight children, with a Mongo father and a Tutsi mother from Rwanda. In 1964, the family went to live in Kinshasa in a middle class area, until the day when Pascal's father, a ship's captain, died. His mother then moved to a much poorer area of the city, and Pascal had to work to feed the family. As well as singing in churches. Lokua Kanza sings in French, Swahili, Lingala, Portuguese, and English. He was a coach in ''The Voice Afrique Francophone'' in 2016 and 2017. Discography * '' Lokua Kanza'' (1993, Universal) * '' Wapi Yo'' (1995, BMG) * '' 3'' (1998, Universal) * '' Toyebi Te'' (2002, Universal) * '' Toto Bona Lokua'' (2004, No Format!) with Richard Bona & Gerald Tot ...
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Congo River
The Congo River ( kg, Nzâdi Kôngo, french: Fleuve Congo, pt, Rio Congo), formerly also known as the Zaire River, is the second longest river in Africa, shorter only than the Nile, as well as the second largest river in the world by discharge volume, following only the Amazon. It is also the world's deepest recorded river, with measured depths around . The Congo- Lualaba- Chambeshi River system has an overall length of , which makes it the world's ninth- longest river. The Chambeshi is a tributary of the Lualaba River, and ''Lualaba'' is the name of the Congo River upstream of Boyoma Falls, extending for . Measured along with the Lualaba, the main tributary, the Congo River has a total length of . It is the only major river to cross the Equator twice. The Congo Basin has a total area of about , or 13% of the entire African landmass. Name The name ''Congo/Kongo'' originates from the Kingdom of Kongo once located on the southern bank of the river. The kingdom in turn was name ...
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Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area and 20% of its land area.Sayre, April Pulley (1999), ''Africa'', Twenty-First Century Books. . With billion people as of , it accounts for about of the world's human population. Africa's population is the youngest amongst all the continents; the median age in 2012 was 19.7, when the worldwide median age was 30.4. Despite a wide range of natural resources, Africa is the least wealthy continent per capita and second-least wealthy by total wealth, behind Oceania. Scholars have attributed this to different factors including geography, climate, tribalism, colonialism, the Cold War, neocolonialism, lack of democracy, and corruption. Despite this low concentration of wealth, recent economic expansion and the large and young population make Afr ...
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Festival International Du Film Francophone De Namur
The ''Festival International du Film Francophone de Namur'' (FIFF) is a festival dedicated to French speaking films in Namur, Belgium created in 1986, reflecting francophone diversity, from Europe, Canada and Africa. History The festival is created in 1986 as "''Festival cinématographique de Wallonie''" (Film festival of Wallonia). Since 1988, the festival is recognized by the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie. In 1989, the association changed its name to "''Festival International du Film Francophone de Namur''" and is recognized by FIAPF The FIAPF (Fédération Internationale des Associations de Producteurs de Films; en, International Federation of Film Producers Associations), created in 1933, is an organization composed with 36 member associations from 30 of the leading audio ... as a specialized competitive festival, it now acquires the right to award with ''Bayards d'Or'' (best film, best actor, best actress and Special Jury Prize). See also * Francop ...
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David Livingstone
David Livingstone (; 19 March 1813 – 1 May 1873) was a Scottish physician, Congregationalist, and pioneer Christian missionary with the London Missionary Society, an explorer in Africa, and one of the most popular British heroes of the late 19th-century Victorian era. David was the husband of Mary Moffat Livingstone, from the prominent 18th Century missionary family, Moffat. He had a mythic status that operated on a number of interconnected levels: Protestant missionary martyr, working-class "rags-to-riches" inspirational story, scientific investigator and explorer, imperial reformer, anti-slavery crusader, and advocate of British commercial and colonial expansion. Livingstone's fame as an explorer and his obsession with learning the sources of the Nile River was founded on the belief that if he could solve that age-old mystery, his fame would give him the influence to end the East African Arab–Swahili slave trade. "The Nile sources", he told a friend, "are valuabl ...
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Henry Morton Stanley
Sir Henry Morton Stanley (born John Rowlands; 28 January 1841 – 10 May 1904) was a Welsh-American explorer, journalist, soldier, colonial administrator, author and politician who was famous for his exploration of Central Africa Central Africa is a subregion of the African continent comprising various countries according to different definitions. Angola, Burundi, the Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of the Congo ... and his search for missionary and explorer David Livingstone, whom he later claimed to have greeted with the now-famous line: "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?". Besides his discovery of Livingstone, he is mainly known for his search for the sources of the Nile and Congo River, Congo rivers, the work he undertook as an agent of Leopold II of the Belgians, King Leopold II of the Belgians which enabled the occupation of the Congo (area), Congo Basin region, and his command of the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition. ...
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Leopold II Of Belgium
* german: link=no, Leopold Ludwig Philipp Maria Viktor , house = Saxe-Coburg and Gotha , father = Leopold I of Belgium , mother = Louise of Orléans , birth_date = , birth_place = Brussels, Belgium , death_date = , death_place = Laeken, Brussels, Belgium , burial_place = Church of Our Lady of Laeken , religion = Roman Catholicism Leopold II (french: link=no, Léopold Louis Philippe Marie Victor, nl, Leopold Lodewijk Filips Maria Victor; 9 April 1835 – 17 December 1909) was the second King of the Belgians from 1865 to 1909 and the self-made autocratic ruler of the Congo Free State from 1885 to 1908. Born in Brussels as the second but eldest-surviving son of Leopold I and Louise of Orléans, Leopold succeeded his father to the Belgian throne in 1865 and reigned for exactly 44 years until his death, the longest reign of a Belgian monarch to date. He died without surviving legitimate sons. The current Belgian king descends from his ne ...
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Baudouin Of Belgium
Baudouin (;, ; nl, Boudewijn Albert Karel Leopold Axel Maria Gustaaf, ; german: Balduin Albrecht Karl Leopold Axel Maria Gustav. 7 September 1930 – 31 July 1993), Dutch name Boudewijn, was King of the Belgians from 17 July 1951 until his death in 1993. He was the last Belgian king to be sovereign of the Congo. Baudouin was the elder son of King Leopold III (1901–1983) and his first wife, Princess Astrid of Sweden (1905–1935). Because he and his wife, Queen Fabiola, had no children, at Baudouin's death the crown passed to his younger brother, King Albert II. Childhood and accession Prince Baudouin was born on 7 September 1930 in the Château du Stuyvenberg, near Laeken, Brussels, the elder son and second child of Prince Leopold, then Duke of Brabant, and his first wife, Princess Astrid of Sweden. In 1934, Baudouin's grandfather King Albert I of Belgium was killed in a rock climbing accident; Leopold became king and the three-year-old Baudouin became Duke of Brabant ...
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Patrice Lumumba
Patrice Émery Lumumba (; 2 July 1925 – 17 January 1961) was a Congolese politician and independence leader who served as the first prime minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (then known as the Republic of the Congo) from June until September 1960. A member of the Congolese National Movement (MNC), he led the MNC from 1958 until his execution in January 1961. Ideologically an African nationalist and pan-Africanist, he played a significant role in the transformation of the Congo from a colony of Belgium into an independent republic. Shortly after Congolese independence in 1960, a mutiny broke out in the army, marking the beginning of the Congo Crisis. Lumumba appealed to the United States and the United Nations for help to suppress the Belgian-supported Katangan secessionists led by Moïse Tshombe. Both refused, due to suspicions among the Western world that Lumumba secretly held pro-communist views. These suspicions deepened when Lumumba turned to the Soviet ...
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Mobutu
Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu Wa Za Banga (; born Joseph-Désiré Mobutu; 14 October 1930 – 7 September 1997) was a Congolese politician and military officer who was the president of Zaire from 1965 to 1997 (known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo from 1965 to 1971). He also served as Chairman of the Organisation of African Unity from 1967 to 1968. During the Congo Crisis, Mobutu, serving as Chief of Staff of the Army and supported by Belgium and the United States, deposed the democratically elected government of left-wing nationalist Patrice Lumumba in 1960. Mobutu installed a government that arranged for Lumumba's execution in 1961, and continued to lead the country's armed forces until he took power directly in a second coup in 1965. To consolidate his power, he established the Popular Movement of the Revolution as the sole legal political party in 1967, changed the Congo's name to ''Zaire'' in 1971, and his own name to Mobutu Sese Seko in 1972. Mobutu claimed that h ...
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Laurent-Désiré Kabila
Laurent-Désiré Kabila () (27 November 1939 – 18 January 2001) or simply Laurent Kabila ( US: ), was a Congolese revolutionary and politician who was the third President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo from 1997 until his assassination in 2001. A longtime opponent of Mobutu Sese Seko, he led the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo (ADFLC), a Rwandan and Ugandan-sponsored rebel group that invaded Zaire and overthrew Mobutu during the First Congo War from 1996 to 1997. Having now become the new president of the country, whose name was changed back to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kabila found himself in a delicate position as a puppet of his foreign backers. The following year, he ordered the departure of all foreign troops from the country to prevent a potential coup, leading to the Second Congo War in which his former Rwandan and Ugandan allies began sponsoring several rebel groups to overthrow him including the Rally for Congolese Demo ...
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