SCREENING & EVENT LINEUP
October 19th-25th, 2025

All events take place at Maysles Documentary Center unless otherwise indicated.
Tickets are available to purchase for a suggested donation at the cinema box office starting 1 hour before showtime,
or online through advance ticketing links.

Tickets do not guarantee a seat in the main screening room;
it is recommended that ticket holders arrive early to secure their preferred seat.
For sold-out shows, there will be overflow seating offered on the lower level of MDC.

Sunday, October 19th
3:00PM

UNDER THE CONGO SUN
A Cultural Showcase

***Special FREE off-site event***
The Africa Center
1280 5th Ave (at 110th St), NYC 10029
Admission is FREE - Please RSVP

Curated by Lubangi Muniania
With support from The Africa Center

Under the Congo Sun is a celebration of Congolese culture, pride, and resilience in a showcase featuring music, dance, film, and food. The program will open with a drum call by Nkumu Katalay, followed by a Circle of Knowledge sharing traditional instruments, masks, and other objects of cultural import, led by Lubangi Muniania. After that, there will be screenings of short films by Joanna Makabi, stand-up comedy from Joshua Diakanwa, live music by Nkossi Honda, and a step-by-step introduction to the latest Congolese dance craze, Plekess. The event will conclude with a taste of Congolese food, including fufu, pondu, makemba, makayabo, chikwange, pili-pili and beignet, prepared by Domitille Lupumba.

Monday, October 20th
6:00PM

BUY TICKETS

MOBUTU’S GAME
Dir. Guillaume Graux, 2025, 216 min.
Written by Wendy Bashi, Guillaume Graux, Joost Vandensande

LUMUMBA’S SHADOW (Episode 1)
Rising in the shadow of Congo’s first elected Prime Minister, Patrice Lumumba, Joseph-Désiré Mobutu gains his trust while secretly aligning with Western powers. When Lumumba falls out of favor with the West, Mobutu seizes the moment—staging a coup, aiding in his mentor’s murder, and sabotaging Congo’s decolonization in a single, ruthless move.

AUTHENTICITY (Episode 2)
After Lumumba’s death, Mobutu relies on Western support to crush a brutal rebellion, leaving tens of thousands dead and the Congo effectively recolonized. Seizing power through a second coup, he rules for 32 years under the guise of decolonization, masking corruption and abuse behind a hollow cult of personality and nationalist rhetoric.

DESCENT INTO HELL (Episode 3)
As Mobutu tightens his grip on power, repression intensifies, the economy collapses, and the elite grow richer while the people suffer. Branded a kleptocrat and abandoned by the West after the Cold War, Mobutu sees his own downfall looming, much like that of his fallen allies.

AFTER ME COMES THE FLOOD (Episode 4)
With the Cold War over, Mobutu loses his Western backing, and as Congo descends into chaos, he retreats into isolation, gravely ill and abandoned by his people. His final miscalculation – accepting Rwandan refugees – paves the way for his overthrow and exile, leaving behind a shattered nation and a legacy of conflict that would fuel one of the deadliest humanitarian crises since World War II.

Tuesday, October 21st
7:00PM

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LUMUMBA: DEATH OF A PROPHET
Dir. Raoul Peck, 1991, 69 min.

Set in the months before and after the Congo declared its independence from Belgium, this gripping and deeply personal political film from director Raoul Peck (I Am Not Your Negro), who grew up in the Congo, depicts the rise and fall of legendary African leader and first Prime Minister of the Republic of Congo Patrice Lumumba. Lumumba became a lightning rod of Cold War politics as his vision of a united Africa gained him powerful enemies in Belgium and the US. This new restoration – strikingly photographed in Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and Belgium as civil war raged in the Congo – mixes Peck’s reflections and home movies with archival footage and vivid re-creations of the shocking events that led to the birth of a country.

Restored by The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project and Cineteca di Bologna at L’Immagine Ritrovata/L’Image Retrouvée in collaboration with Velvet Film and supervised by Raoul Peck.

Funding provided by the Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation.

This restoration is part of the African Film Heritage Project, an initiative created by The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project, the Pan African Federation of Filmmakers and UNESCO – in collaboration with Cineteca di Bologna – to help locate, restore, and disseminate African cinema.

Wednesday, October 22nd
7:00PM

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NSALA
Dir. Mickael-Sltan Mbanza, 2025, 10 min.

RED AFRICA
Dir. Alexander Markov, 2022, 64 min.

NSALA:  Blending Belgian colonial archives with footage shot today, Nsala reveals the human side of a dehumanizing economic machine. Through past and present imagery, the film questions the legacy of exploitation and the silent trauma that persists in bodies and landscapes marked by history.

RED AFRICA: Built from Soviet newsreels and documentaries shot across Africa from the 1960s through 1990s, Red Africa tells the story of how the Soviet Union rushed in as colonial powers were rushing out – with loans, aid, and ideology – hoping to win Africa over to socialism. African leaders were shown a carefully staged version of the USSR: smiling workers, gleaming factories, and the promise of equality. Many embraced the symbols – red ties, parades, one-party rule, believing they were building a better future. But behind the gestures of friendship were other motives. Resources flowed back to Moscow, students were trained more in propaganda than in practical skills, and Soviet “support” often meant weapons, speeches, and control. Over time, the cracks showed. The dream of a global socialist future faded, and when the Soviet Union collapsed, so did its promises – leaving both Africa and the USSR to reckon with what had really been built in socialism’s name.

Thursday, October 23rd
7:00PM

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MÉDUSE, CHEVEUX AFRO ET AUTRES MYTHES
Dir. Johanna Makabi, 2018, 19 min.

BANDEKO BASI
Dir. Bie Michels & Paul Shemisi, 2025, 65 min.

MÉDUSE: From London to Paris, ending in Marseille, we set out in search of various salons to film different styles and techniques of hairstyling: cornrows, flat braids, sleek braids, weaves, relaxers, afros... Along the way, through encounters and conversations with passersby and hairdressers, we explore the importance of hair care and maintenance in black and African cultures. Through the stories of Romy, Cyn, Kami, and Louise, we follow their “hair journeys,” which ultimately turn out to be more political than aesthetic.

BANDEKO BASI: Filmmakers Paul Shemisi and Bie Michels explore the everyday realities of women in Kinshasa as they navigate the complex intersection of tradition, modernity, and female sexual identity. At the heart of the film is activist Hana Kele (known as HanaKel), whose candid reflections and social media presence challenge taboos and spark open conversations about gender and sexuality. Rather than presenting a structured sociological analysis, the film offers a mosaic of voices – women, queer individuals, and others – captured through spontaneous, intimate encounters that reflect the city’s vibrant, layered perspectives. With its fluid camera work and collaborative approach, Bandeko Basi is a living dialogue, shaped by the filmmakers' own post-colonial backgrounds and the intimate viewpoints of Congolese women.

Post-screening discussion with filmmaker Bie Michels

Friday, October 24th
7:00PM

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WHERE MY MEMORY BEGAN
Dir. Priscillia Kounkou-Hoveyda, 2024, 9 min. 

L’ARBRE DE L'AUTHENTICITÉ (THE TREE OF AUTHENTICITY)
Dir. Sammy Baloji, 2025, 85 min.

WHERE MY MEMORY BEGAN: Elder Ballu arrives at the Cotton Tree after hearing the news that the 400-year-old majestic tree has fallen. Standing at the roots of what’s left, elder Ballu remembers Abigal, Rugiatu and Prince as children at play, James and Michael standing as young men, and a marching band that takes us to a past that we continue to carry today – that of the histories of our ancestors who crossed the Atlantic. Where My Memory Began blends stunning visuals of the tree, the different people who have inhabited its reality as well as archival footage, music and dance to tell a timeless story of a quest for freedom.

L’ARBRE: Nestled in Africa's largest rainforest lies one of the many graves of the West's efforts to control nations and nature – one of the world's largest tropical agricultural research centers. Located on the banks of the Congo River, the Yangambi INERA Research Station was a booming scientific center in its heyday. Today, it is an amalgam of jungle and ruin, where questions of knowledge, power over it, and access to it linger. The Tree of Authenticity recounts the stigma of ecological destruction that began at the time of colonisation through the voices of two emblematic scientists who worked at Yangambi between 1910 and 1950: Paul Panda Farnana and Abiron Beirnaert. Their stories embody the legacies of colonial modernity and trace the origins of today's environmental injustice.

Saturday, October 25th
2:00PM - 3:30PM EST

STANDING WITH CONGO’S FRONTLINE FOREST DEFENDERS

***Special Panel Discussion***
Virtual event via Zoom

Zoom Link

The Democratic Republic of the Congo accounts for 62% of the Congo Basin which is the second largest rainforest in the world. The Congo basin is often referred to as the second lung of the world with the Amazon being the first. However, the Congo Basin sequesters more carbon than both the Amazon and Borneo. It is also home to the largest tropical peatlands, which makes up 4% of the Congo rainforest, and stores the equivalent of 20 years of the United States’ carbon emissions from the burning of fossil fuels.

The Congo basin is a global patrimony which is vital to the entire planet. The primary people relied upon to protect and preserve the Congo Basin are its Indigenous inhabitants. However, they are often silenced and sidelined. This forum will highlight and amplify the voices of Indigenous communities in the Congo Basin and share concrete ways in which climate justice advocates and people throughout the globe can be in solidarity with Congo's frontline forest defenders.  

Speakers: TBD
Contact: info@friendsofthecongo.org

Saturday, October 25th
7:00PM

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BLACK SUN
Dir. Alexsei Speshnev, 1971, 97 min.

Black Sun is a long-unseen and rarely screened Soviet drama that offers a fictionalized portrayal of Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba through the character of Robert Moussombe, the president of an unnamed African nation. Drawing from the real events of the Congo Crisis in the 1960s, the film captures the turmoil of post-independence Africa as it became a battleground for Cold War ideologies. Told through haunting flashbacks and a metaphysical dialogue between two dead men trying to understand their fate, Black Sun blends political allegory with personal tragedy.

Directed by Alexei Speshnev – an influential Soviet screenwriter and filmmaker – Black Sun was his third fiction feature and part of a trilogy exploring African–Soviet relations. The film features a cast of professional actors, amateurs, and international students from Soviet university theaters, representing over 30 African countries. With Cameroonian theater actor Ambroise M’Bia and Senegalese film star Mbissine Thérèse Diop in leading roles, the film stands out as a rare and ambitious experiment in Soviet internationalist cinema, revisiting colonialism, revolution, and betrayal through a uniquely Eastern Bloc lens.

Post-screening discussion with speakers to be announced, and closing night reception with live music by Nkumu Katalay