Congo in Harlem 10: One.Two.Three & Our Africa

experience of Joseph M’Belolo, a student in Belgium at the height of the movement. The film, presented as a triptych, becomes an experimental space for the reworking of a protest song M’Belolo wrote in 1968, now performed by female musicians in the legendary Un Deux Trois nightclub, once home to the legendary Franco and his band OK Jazz. As M’Belolo’s lost song is rediscovered, popular uprisings break out in Kinshasa, evoking the repetitive cycles of injustice and resistance.

Our AfricaDir. Alexander MarkovDocumentary, 2018, 45 min.Russian, French, English, Portuguese, & Swahili, w/ English subtitles

In the mid-1960s, the USSR starts Marxist-based humanitarian aid programs in Congo and several other newly independent African nations. Soviet filmmakers are sent along to document the glorious advance of socialism, generating an archive of material that captures a pivotal moment for the entire continent. After the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia lost political interest in Africa, but the films shot on African soil remain. Drawing on this rare archive augmented by impeccable sound design, Our Africa recreates the time of the “Great Utopia”, and in the process exposes the mechanisms at play in the creation of propaganda.

Congo in Harlem is a showcase of films, exhibits, panel discussions and special events focused on the history, politics, and culture of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.