Goma, Nord Kivu Province Democratic Republic of Congo, October 27th 2011
Art will happen anywhere it is imagined and the venue for the Salaam Kivu International Film Festival (SKIFF) in Goma, eastern Congo, is packed out this afternoon—most of the crowd being kids there for a dance contest, after which there is a ballot with long lines for the voting: a vibrant, messy, democracy.
The largest such festival in Congo, SKIFF is a major event, as much an arts festival as a film festival, with concerts, dance performances, discussion groups, workshops, films from around the world and local ones also. It is an improbable but beautiful event, here in the conflict zone of Nord Kivu province, far from Congo’s biggest cities.
What is called the festival at the foot of a volcano—the active Nyiragongo volcano is less than 5km away—is the brain child of the Congolese film makers Petna Katondolo and his wife Chérie and is in its 5th year. It’s—now legendary—opening season was marked by a major military offensive by a local warlord which came to the gates of the city and threatened to topple it as well. The festival, bravely, decided to continue.
Since then it has grown and come into itself as a fixture on the local and regional arts scene. There is a contingent of films from elsewhere in Africa as well as Iran, Serbia, Germany and the US. What makes it more interesting is the depth of local participation. There is a community of young film makers in Nord Kivu, many of them students at Yole! Africa, the production company of the organisers which is based here in Goma and runs film workshops and training courses. It has, single handedly, helped conjure a generation of young film makers into being in an unlikely spot; a source of light if there ever was one.
I am here tonight for what is the premiere of my first—and probably only—film; a documentary short about the local boxer and ex-child soldier, Kibomango, for which I am producer and Petna, who is festival host, the director. Film making is story telling and Kibomango’s is one that should be told, something that seemed obvious the moment I met him.
Tonight’s premiere is not exactly a gala event—we are in a tent in the compound’s courtyard with grimy, volcanic ash underfoot—but there will be drinks and food afterword, as much razzmatazz as can be mustered, or is really necessary for anyone. The audience for the most part are local and regional film makers and film students, as critical and discerning a group as can be imagined. Kibomango is also here, together with his wife. This is not familiar territory for him—he is a poor man who scrapes along as a street mechanic and makes no claims to sophistication. There are some class issues also with the better educated young students and audience members.
But Kibomango’s charm comes from a different quarter—education teaches you things but does not make you smarter, and there are many different kinds of intelligence. His is an innate and physical intelligence of someone who has lived by their wits, participated in this country’s horrendous wars and come through it with his life and integrity intact and is now pursuing his goals as a professional athlete with iron self-discipline, raising himself to the top of his field. There are hard lessons from this man’s life but far more joy than suffering—the triumph of the human spirit.
The film, when it rolls, is a 25 minute short and is a work in progress. But it succeeds with what it is trying to do—telling a story about Kibomango’s life as a soldier, a child soldier, who swept away the rotten regime of the ex-dictator Mobutu, walked on foot through the jungle all the way from here to the capital, fought battles and left comrades behind to die in the bush. He speaks about his bitterness when he woke in hospital and felt a patch where his eye used to be, about having lost comrades at one large battle from which he was one of the only to survive. He tells us that he hated God at that point. He was discharged from the army and turned to boxing, for which his talent was natural. Otherwise, the film is really about a few days in Goma earlier this year when he was preparing for a title fight. The ghost of his last professional fight hangs over the film, when his opponent died in the ring, an opponent who was a friend and mentor. Many will not let him forget this and his career has been stymied ever since. The film ends with the fight he is preparing for being cancelled at the last second for reasons that are unclear, but with Kibomango vowing to continue.
The credits roll, the lights go up and the Q and A starts. Film students are a demanding audience and the questions are tough, even sceptical. The main ones I recall ask why I am making films in DRC and not Canada, or what I expect to get out of the relationship with Kibomango. I reply as clearly and respectfully as I can that I did not set out to make films here or anywhere else but that my life collided unexpectedly with someone else’s story and that I do not expect riches or glory from it.
Afterword we retire to the main hall for drinks. Ferdinand, who has been glancing at his watch, leaves immediately; there have been bandit attacks in his quarter and it is now well after dark and not safe to travel. It is a boisterous crowd; the 10 day long festival is close to an end and the participants are kicking out a bit. Some Ugandan film makers are leaving in the morning and there is some—well lubricated—speech giving. Everyone has a turn.
By the time Kibomango’s chance arrives the crowd has warmed up. Several of the students have already begun to eulogise him in their speeches. He is now a star—a war and sports hero, a warrior among friends. He tells his tale, explains what his life and ambitions have been, makes some reference and thanks to me for having understood and believed in him and says that when I came to him in the street and asked to train with his boxing club he treated me no differently than the street kids who are his students. This is mostly true, but I’m not unhappy to hear it, get some street cred with the film students.
As the evening carries on the crowd has come closer together, with the warmth and bonhomie of shared experience and, also, free drink. Petna, the festival director, whose authority in this setting is natural and low key, offers what is the equivalent of concluding remarks. They are that Kibomango’s reputation had initially come to him as that of a street tough boxer, a thug who had killed his last opponent but that he had come to see that he was a good man and that the film has helped prove and tell this. He points to my having recognised Kibomango’s humanity and chides, very gently, some of the sharper comments from the film Q&A in assuming that the interest of a foreigner in the project is to exploit the story and says that as Congolese they must look beyond that, and see humanity wherever it is. It is a touching moment; there is some sniffling in the room.
A triumph for one human spirit is a triumph for all. Congratulations on the film premiere, and on achieving street cred, one incident at a time!