Pièces d'Identités

Credits

Name: Pièces d'Identités

Country: DR Kongo

Year of publication: 1998

Format: 35 mm

Color: color

Language : OF m. engl. UT

Duration: 93 Minuten

Direction: Ngangura, Mweze

Screenplay: Ngangura, Mweze

Camera: Besse, Jacques

Editing: Duez, France; Ralet, Ingrid

Sound: Ralet, Ingrid

Actor: Essomba, Gérard; Mesa, Dominique; Flack, Herbert

Abstract

An ageing Zairian king, Mani Kongo, decides to visit Belgium in search of his daughter, from whom he has not heard since he sent her to study medicine there many years ago. Clad in the regal symbols representing his powerful royal status back home (a sculptured headgear, and fine royal jewellery, among other things), he arrives at Belgium Airport, only to find himself stripped of the perceived works of art he is wearing and forced to pay an importation tax by Belgian custom authorities.

Eventually robbed, homeless and penniless, he is forced to sell the `pieces of his identity` through a local antique dealer. Ironically the old king continually contrasts his fond recollections of participating in a delegation of Congolese notables to the Belgian king in the fifties with the treatment he is receiving presently. (africanfilmlibrary)