Pieces of Identity

A man is chosen at random to be the new leader of his African country, which makes him uncomfortable because he is married to a woman and has a son with her—but they are from rival ethnic groups. How does he reconcile his thirst for power with his duty to his family?

Mweze Ngangura takes us to his native region, Ngweshe, one of he six Bushi kingdoms in the province of Kivu, in Eastern Zaïre. In this region of the Great Lakes, wealth is mesured in heads of cows and in length and breadth of banana plantations. Intermixed with commentaries of the director, are those of the King, Mwami Pierre Ndatabaye Weza III, divulging the daily realities of this traditional African kingdom as it confronts the modern world. The third narrator, Makura, is a storyteller. This guardian of traditional knowledge and collective memory teaches the children the proverbs, customs and mythologies of the region. « The King, the Cow and the Banana Tree » sheds light on the dramatic events unfolding in neighbouring Rwanda, particularly in a prophetic sequence where a seer predicts calamities that will take place in the countries surrounding Ngweshe.

A young man with dreams of pursuing a career in music moves form his small village to the capital. Along the way he falls head over heels for a woman - the same woman his boss is also pursuing for his own reasons.

A rare documentary made in Brussels in the early nineties collecting witnesses on how local and Congolese musicians enriched each other including internationally known stars such as Manu Dibango, Toots Tielemans, Vaya Con Dios, Phillippe Catherine, Victor Laszlo, Zap Mama...