L'arbre de l'authenticité

Sammy Baloji’s L’arbre de l’authenticité proposes three African perspectives through clearly distinct stories that interrogate the Congo-Belgian colonial relationship. While the first two stories document the potentiality of agrarian development through two historical figures that bear witness to the complexity of a mixed culture, a culture between science and tradition, the third one openly transcends the human perspective and constitutes a fierce criticism of the idea of emancipation itself. In this way, the historically informative core of the film is surpassed by an a-historical factuality, which is anticipated through the poetic images and soundtrack of the entire film.