IN CINEMA
Friday, October 24th at 7PM
Where My Memory Began & The Tree of Authenticity
Congo In Harlem 17
Co-presented with Friends of the Congo and True Walker Productions
WHERE MY MEMORY BEGAN
Priscillia Kounkou-Hoveyda, 2024, 9 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.
TREE OF AUTHENTICITY
Sammy Baloji, 2025, 85 min.
THE TREE OF AUTHENTICITY: 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.
$15 General Admission / $7 Reduced Price
