By Georg Szalai. Global Business Editor. The Democratic Republic of Congo has been in the headlines as of late with reports about conflict and the advances of the so-called March 23 Movement rebels. Baloji was inspired to make the film, his first solo feature as a director, to present a more differentiated picture of the country and its role in the world.
So I really wanted to look at all these kinds of elements in terms of extraction and in terms of data collected, but also from the Congolese and the colonial perspective. For the first two parts of the film, Baloji had a lot of material to put together from and about the two featured scientists. But for the third part, he called on anthropologist Thomas Hendriks, whose book Rainforest Capitalism he knew, for writing help. And so they wrote the final and most poetic part of the film together.
That really came together right at the end. Sound and soundscapes play a key role in the movie, which becomes more and more noticeable over time. Before this film, I made a short in collaboration with him by just using sounds that he recorded. One of them was the sound of ice melting which was fantastic. It was just crazy amazing sound. The visual artist and photographer lives and works between his hometown of Lubumbashi in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Brussels, Belgium, and has previously made short experimental films and documentaries in collaboration with others.
But Tree continues key themes his creations revolve around. The filmmaker already has ideas for future movies. In particular, he would like to make the feature film Il Padre selvaggio The Savage Father , an adaptation of the eponymous screenplay by Pier Paolo Pasolini written in for a film that the legendary Italian director never made. The story explores the tribulations of the Congo through the encounter between an idealistic Italian teacher and Davidson, a Congolese student.
But first, Baloji is focused on showcasing Tree in Rotterdam. Sign up for THR news straight to your inbox every day.
