Short before main film
The Kibomango Story (dir. Savva Svet, 2022, 4')
This short film tells the incredible story of Kibomango (1977), a former child soldier turned Congolese national boxing champion. Now a struggling mechanic, he has devoted himself to helping former child soldiers and street children of Goma through boxing. Kibomango aims to instill in them a sense of discipline, ambition and self-worth.
De film will be introduced by Sibo Rugwiza Kanobana.
Lumumba: The Return of a Hero
Congo became independent on 30 June 1960. For eighty years it was a Belgian colony, a time when the Congolese were harshly oppressed and exploited. Nationalist leader Patrice Lumumba became its first prime minister, a man who wanted to use his country's vast natural resources for the benefit of its people. And he also wanted to strengthen ties with the Soviet Union, something that fell badly with Belgians and Americans at the time of the Cold War. Seven months after his appointment, on 17 January 1961, Lumumba was assassinated. His body was dissolved in sulphuric acid, only a tooth remained, and it was taken away by the Belgians.
In 2001, a Belgian parliamentary commission acknowledged moral responsibility for all the abuses, in 2022 Lumumba's tooth was finally returned to his children. One of them said, ‘Congo returns to Congo.’ This film reports on the celebrations surrounding that return, but also looks at the political legacy of a man who played such a prominent role in the decolonisation process.
Sibo Rugwiza Kanobana (b. 1975, Mbandaka, Congo) is a scholar of sociolinguistics and post colonial studies. He grew up in Brussels and earned a degree in comparative cultural sciences from Ghent University. Kanobana has taught Dutch as a second language and worked on language policy at UGent before becoming a lecturer at the Open University of the Netherlands and Ghent University.
He has published widely on colonial and post colonial issues. Notably, he co authored De bastaards van onze kolonie (2010), a critical anthology on Belgian-Congolese métis history, and edited Zwarte bladzijden (2021), a collection of Afro Belgian reflections on Flemish literature . He is also an editor of the cultural magazine rekto:verso and regularly contributes to debates on diversity, racism, decolonization, and interculturalism . His latest work, Lumumba’s Droom: Wat zijn gedachtegoed ons vandaag kan leren (2025), examines the ideas of Patrice Lumumba, often mischaracterized as extremist, portraying him instead as a visionary builder of bridges. The book highlights the enduring relevance of Lumumba’s speeches, essays, and letters in our modern context.
