Venu à Montréal pour présenter « This is Congo » au 34e Festival international de cinéma Vues d’Afrique, Daniel McCabe a répondu en première Internationale à quelques questions suite à la projection du film.
À Propos du film :
Ce film nous plonge de manière immersive dans l’un des plus vieux conflit du monde. Au cours des deux dernières décennies, la République Démocratique du Congo a été le théâtre de plus de cinq millions de morts relié au conflit, d’instabilité politique et l’appauvrissement du peuple congolais. This is Congo entraîne le spectateur sur les lignes du conflit entre les différents acteurs clés comme un lanceur d’alerte ou des commandants militaires pour offrir une vision non-filtrée et unique de ce qui se passe en RDC.
Congo, République Démocratique du, États-Unis, Canada, Qatar | V.O. Français, Anglais, Swahili, Lingala | S.T. Anglais | 2017 | 91min | Couleur | Documentaire | Documentaire international, Droit de la personne | Première Canadienne
Daniel McCabe parle du film et des conditions de tournage :
« It’s great to see a sold-out crowd for seems like two nights in a row let’s have questions good evening everyone thank you my question is how long did you take those images and let me use what would you say today it doesn’t maintain our chances that some pit stops you’re safe I took us we ».
« The filming was from 2011 to 2014 so it was a little over three years filming so quite some time and it took us a bit of time in the edit obviously there’s a lot of different characters being woven in so it was a difficult task in terms of the the future of Congo I think right now well not more than any other time always Congo has been in need of our attention and change but right now is an especially turbulent time there’s an election that should be happening but it likely will not I think… I think needs us to turn our attention here in the international community and Congo as well in terms of my predictions it’s very difficult I don’t know that the elections will happen and I feel that that these types of events will continue unless there is there’s a real effort for change you know we need to be involved…I don’t really have an answer but I know that all of us can be part of the solution ».
« I think the support of the Congolese is what I can’t take full responsibility for this film…it was the colonies themselves that actually educated me and kept me on the right path without my relationships with the Congolese in the field I never would have been able to even understand the magnitude of the issues in the coal going and certainly not been able to produce such a document ».
« In short the process of the film I initially set out looking to make a documentary that examined the root causes of the conflict in the Congo but told through the Congolese themselves so the process was by spending time on the ground and cumulative time on the ground was it was over three almost three and a half years of filming there’s about hours of footage…so it was it was quite a process filming and you know it was a bit of a shotgun spray into the eastern into the Kibo region so I had embedded with several different arm groups and going to different mining sites and spoken to different political figures to try and find these threads but I think more accurately to maybe put myself into a position with these threads these characters could have found me…I think often my naivety in in being in a country that’s not my own coming from a completely other part of the world kind of helped me a bit in the sense that I knowing that what I didn’t know really allowed me to be quiet and let the stories come to me let the characters tell me what their issues were and as I’ve mentioned earlier what the Congolese kind of educated me so in brief meeting these characters they found me you know while I was in a camp looking for a rape victim or a child or some victim of war it was the this diligent tailor that was just hit the ground and on his first day he was setting up a camp and making a survivor…this is what kind of pulled me in with Mama romance I’m looking for a smuggler some big bad nefarious evil man but it was this big fat loving woman that you just melted her arms that pulled me in and in Mamadou and I think his character speaks for itself he’s incredibly charismatic guy so much so that he was perhaps blinded by that…so the process was slow and I think that was the secret ingredient was just taking time and let the things accumulate ».
« This is my first film and my first trip into the Congo was in 2007 and I photographer I was based in Nairobi as a freelance photojournalist so uh so that that was my background I come with a degree of experience though these kinds of situations you really can’t prepare for this but it was my initial trip as a photographer into the Congo that really showed me where I want it to be ».
« We also need to remember that while these resources are very easy to point our fingers at that that’s the problem I think we also need to recognize that that’s the solution this is the wealth of Congo and if properly managed this will provide the solution this will provide all the infrastructure and the tools that the country needs to rebuild itself so it’s we need to keep an open mind when were with any of these things ».
« The access is insanely difficult especially to the National Army I don’t know that anybody’s really gained access like that and the way it was done was in brief was that after I had met Mamadou in that unit we had kind of colluded together to try and work together we devised an idea of how to create this access so we went to superior commanders and ultimately the leader of the entire land forces of the Congolese army with a proposition of making a propaganda film for them so I went I shot of a propaganda film about Mamadou unit whose unit that praised them and it was full of all the things they wanted and then I just never left…ultimately the leader of those ground forces when…he was arrested for treason because he was colluding with and now I’ve got this letter that gives me authorization to have all this access and the man who gave it to me is in jail and nobody knew what to do with me so I made a movie ».
« I thank you for including in your question the success that Kagame has brought to everyone that he’s created this incredible economic force in this very small country that’s come from the horrific tragedy however what we see in the film is the more insidious side of what’s happening under his influence and without getting into the rights and wrongs of who should be blamed for things I think what’s what we should all take away from this is understanding that things aren’t always quite what they seem and the heroes that we see built up in front of us not always are as such I think we need to always challenge ourselves to dig deeper especially now especially with the way media is being fed to us today an American…I think this is especially impactful for me understanding how this works so…I don’t want to I don’t want to knock on Rwanda because really it’s bad leaders and not that bad soldiers are bad people…but my hope is that we all have the tools you guys have the tools to uh to dig a bit deeper to educate yourselves more because just getting your media from one sources is not enough you have to you have to get things from all over and you really have to formulate your own opinions and understand how you’re getting to those conclusions ».
« In the film we’ve loaded it full of controversy and metaphor this is not Congo this is eastern Congo this is the kyboots of Congo the title was born from within and for the for the center files in here maybe you’ll see how the title was never appears until the end it’s after Kasongo it essentially puts the question back on the viewer…so it’s a bit of a there’s a bit of trickery that I’m doing with the title and I’m trying to rile people like you up and to get you engaged to really examine what when you’re watching in the film but that’s a good viewpoint and I think we do need to understand and realize that what he’s saying is true this what we’re seeing is eastern Congo and while it’s incredibly mineral-rich and this is often what we see in the headlines there’s so much more to Congo so and this is this is what will we see on the on the surface and to get to your second question I believe I did make that film I believe in this film well assurance it’s about conflict than the characters living within this conflict through the beauty of the landscape and the power of the characters involved we did our best to try and weave that hope inside to end the film on a positive epilogue with Mamadou kind of letting us know that despite all these things and despite his unfortunate demise the hope is inside the Congolese people there’s so much beauty and cultural richness there…I want to make a film that told me about beautiful happy things it just so happens that this wasn’t that film but those films do need to be made and they need to be supported and we need to see more of them…I feel guilty that I didn’t bring that to you maybe on the next one ».
« This is a story about corruption this is a story about what man does this was in Congo we can we can witness this in anyone of any country any scenario…so it’s a universal story you know I want you guys to go away with the toolkit look I want you to be confused the way to be frustrated I want you to be impacted all fucked up…this is what the object of this film is to impact you guys so that when you walk away you’re gonna think about it…tomorrow when you wake up there’ll be something that you weren’t thinking about now it’ll be resonating and the next time you hear a -second flip about program and that’s all it’ll be Oh great Oh resources oh this now you’re a bit more equipped to dig deeper to as you say educate yourselves because I can’t even if I was giving you all the information how can you trust me the best thing I can do is or what we’re trying to do is make it so you can identify with the characters so they’re humanized and I think what’s powerful about each of the characters in the film is that we can all see a bit of ourselves within them… so yeah I just want you guys to have a stepping stone anything perhaps a few tools to use in the future ».
« There’s two answers or there’s probably many answers to that question you know…during the process of the film I learned these things I experienced when I was taught I was mentored through this process so it wasn’t as if I arrived with an idea of how this would end I arrived begin so it was the experience of making the film and the collaborators I had working with me that really helped craft this…you know it’s a really tricky thing I think when we’re really trying to decode these types of conflicts I don’t really know how to how to put a cherry on top of any of this I think my own experience has influenced me and I think it influenced me to the point where I knew that I needed to incorporate other people…so in the process of making this film we had many screenings with congolese themselves experts from all sides we ran this through every expert we could and got their opinions we tried together as much opinion from the congolese as we could you know in a controlled way we had great partnerships with Human Rights watching in the Committee to Protect Journalists and our local teams on the ground…so it wasn’t by accident that we that we arrived at a place that was factually accurate because so long ago everything he says is accurate and it’s because he’s educated however it was filtered through these experts…so we were very careful to make sure the information we were delivering was absolutely accurate in every way however we baked it inside narrator you couldn’t trust Jesus Kasongo real is he lying to you we don’t know ».
Photos et vidéo : Akim Kermiche
