Hacker Cinema
Kisangani Diary
1998 · Film · documentary · 52 min
Directed by Hubert Sauper
Along an overgrown rail track south of the Zairean town Kisangani, a UN expedition together with a handful of journalists discover “lost” refugees. They are eighty thousand Hutus from far away Rwanda, the last survivors of three years of hunger and armed persecution that transpired throughout the vast Congo basin. The Hutu-refugees leave the forest, gathering in two gigantic camps. Hundreds of refugees die every day from diseases and malnutrition The Rwandans are promised repatriation with airplanes out of Kisangani. The film traces those refugees into the heart of the rainforest, and the hopeless attempts to help them.. But only four weeks later, the unprotected UN-camps are again attacked by machine-gun fire, deliberately massacred by factions of the rebel army (AFDL) of today’s Democratic Republic Congo. Eighty thousand men, women and children disappear once again back into the jungle. (jedensvet.cz)
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2 comments on Hacker News
There's this really brutal and obscure documentary I watch about the Congo War in the late 90s whenever I need to appreciate life. It's called "Kisangani Diary." It's far more terrifying than any horror movie because it's real.
It's a documentary about a relief mission that goes out into the Congo using disused railway tracks in order to feed 10s of thousands of Hutu refugees wandering around in the forest fleeing reprisals for the earlier genocide in Rawanda. They are starving to death and being chased by militia who are shooting at them from time to time from the forest. Absolutely no one except for the people in this relief mission cares about what happens to them.
The movie begins with the narrator saying that almost everyone you see in this film will be dead by the end of the movie. When I rewatched it lately, I wondered about those lines and what the future holds for us. What kind of documentary are we in? What if ending shelter in place fails. What if a deadlier strain shows up? What if this is the early days of WW III? All things to contemplate in my opinion, because I've been watching this since January and every week I expected things to get better and they've just been getting worse.
The Congo probably has the most depressing history of any country on earth. First their was the horrific Belgian colonization. Then, more recently, the Congo war in the late 90s was the most violent conflict since World War II with an estimated 2.7 Million to 5.4 Million dead [1] and hardly anybody knows about it. It's even referred to as Africa's World War. There was one documentary about it: Kisangani Diary[2]. It's about the bleakest film I've ever seen.
The war came about after the dictator Mobutu died and the chaos and aftermath of the Rwanda genocide spilled over the border. All the surrounding countries saw enormous natural resource wealth to be claimed and started funding and equipping their own proxy militias to seize power. The whole thing was a huge chaotic mess that destroyed what little infrastructure there was in the country.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Congo_War
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbD76cWdBHc&list=PLDD34C9812AF2DB09