''Katanga Business'' is a 2009 film by Belgian director
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.
O ...
that explores the mining industry in
Katanga Province,
Democratic Republic of the Congo
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (french: République démocratique du Congo (RDC), colloquially "La RDC" ), informally Congo-Kinshasa, DR Congo, the DRC, the DROC, or the Congo, and formerly and also colloquially Zaire, is a country in ...
.
Plot
The province of Katanga in the south east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has huge mineral riches including uranium, zinc, copper and cobalt.
These were exploited in colonial times by the
Union Minière du Haut Katanga
Union commonly refers to:
* Trade union, an organization of workers
* Union (set theory), in mathematics, a fundamental operation on sets
Union may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment
Music
* Union (band), an American rock group
** ''Un ...
, which was nationalized in 1966 by President
Mobutu Sese Seko. Mobutu lavished wealth on his clan, but the mines were soon abandoned, forcing the miners into illegal artisanal workings.
More recently new investors have bought into the industry including Indians and Chinese.
The film surveys the industrial and
artisanal mining
An artisanal miner or small-scale miner (ASM) is a subsistence
A subsistence economy is an economy directed to basic subsistence (the provision of food, clothing, shelter) rather than to the market. Henceforth, "subsistence" is understood as su ...
industry in
Katanga Province. The film explores the murky dealings between the state-owned
Gécamines
La Générale des Carrières et des Mines (Gécamines) is a Congolese commodity trading and mining company headquartered in Lubumbashi, in the Katanga region of the Democratic Republic of Congo. It is a state-controlled corporation founded in ...
, foreign mining companies such as
First Quantum Minerals
First Quantum Minerals is a Canadian-based mining and metals company whose principal activities include mineral exploration, development and mining. Its main product is copper, which accounts for 80% of revenues as of 2016.
First Quantum's com ...
and individuals like
George Forrest, Indian and Chinese investors and state officials. It questions who benefits from the mining operations. ''Katanga Business'' highlights the charismatic governor of the province, the populist
Moses Katumbi.
It shows the great wealth of the province and the abject poverty of the miners.
Technical
Thierry Michel had produced works on the DRC over a period of seventeen years before making ''Katanga Business''. Earlier works were ''Zaire, le cycle du serpent'' (1992), ''Les Derniers Colons'' (1995), ''
Mobutu roi du Zaïre'' (1999) and ''
Congo River, Beyond Darkness'' (2005). Taken together his films provide a unique overview of the social, economic and political life of the country. He made the television documentary film ''Katanga, la guerre du cuivre'' (''Katanga, the copper war'') earlier in 2009, the basis for the film. A book was published with the same title including text and photographs by Thierry Michel.
Michel's Congolese assistant director
Guy Kabeya Muya received death threats for having worked on the film.
The filmmaker
Monique Mbeka Phoba quickly mobilized an international campaign to ensure that the Congolese authorities extended their protection.
Reception
A reviewer in ''
Le Monde
''Le Monde'' (; ) is a French daily afternoon newspaper. It is the main publication of Le Monde Group and reported an average circulation of 323,039 copies per issue in 2009, about 40,000 of which were sold abroad. It has had its own website si ...
'' said of the film that Thierry Michel is not trying to make an indictment, that he approaches the subject with "eyes wide open", and that the film is "bursting with life, in which one will find, as easily as copper in Kolwezi, reason for hope". Another reviewer criticized the decision to let the images and people in the film tell the story, as in a drama, rather than providing explanations of causes and effects. As a result, the film therefore is mostly a simple depiction of the impact of globalization and neo-colonialism. The film was nominated for a
Magritte Award in the category of Best Documentary in 2011.
References
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External links
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* {{IMDb title, 1381067, Katanga Business
2009 films
Belgian documentary films
2000s French-language films
Films set in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Documentary films about mining
Katanga Province
French-language Belgian films