Stream/Society--Antigone Series--Phantoms of Lovanium (2014)

Screening & Zoom Discussion:

Phantoms of Lovanium (Les fantômes de Lovanium)
(Ccil Michel, 2004, 2014, 50 min, Belgium/Congo, in French w/ English subtitles)

Register Here

-- Introduced by Astrid L.B. van Weyenberg (Assistant Professor in Cultural Analysis, Leiden University) 

Relevant Publications:

• The Politics of Adaptation: Contemporary African Drama and Greek Tragedy. Amsterdam: Rodopi Publishers. 2013
• “Revolutionary Muse: Fémi Òsófisan's Tègònni: an African Antigone.” In: Wilmer S., Zukauskaite A. (Eds.) Interrogating Antigone in Postmodern Philosophy and Critisism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. 366-378.
• “Antigone on the African stage: 'Wherever the call for freedom is heard!'” In: Aydemir M., Rotas A. (Eds.) Migrant settings Thamyris/Intersecting: Place, Sex and Race. Amsterdam: Rodopi Publishers. 2008. 119-137.

By the trees in the campus of the University of Kinshasa, this documentary focuses on the efforts of a popular Congolese painter to remember a student revolt that was violently repressed by the authoritarian regime of Mobotu in the 60s. As happens in Sophocles’ ancient tragedy, which makes more than one appearance in the film, grief has been interrupted by the state. The public act of collective remembrance, into which the current students at the University of Kinshasa are invited, exposes the ways in which the ancient Lovanium continues to haunt the Democratic Republic of Congo with its colonial afterlives.

-- Followed by Zoom discussion (see registration link above)

Antigone Film Series:

In preparation for a two-day colloquium on Antigone in the world, the John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute, in collaboration with Screen/Society, is happy to announce a 4-part international film series on Antigone, scheduled throughout Fall 2020. Curated by project co-organizer, Andrés Fabián Henao Castro, the four films selected are not strictly adaptations of Antigone (only one explicitly refers to Sophocles’ play), but each takes up the themes of political violence and contested burials in ways that productively resonate with the ancient tragedy. From Germany to the México-US border, and from Peru to the Congo, the political contestation over who can or cannot be buried exposes more than one violence in its course and invites us to reflect, yet again, on the historical violence that lays at the foundation of the state. The Antigone Film Series has been organized in preparation for a two-day Colloquium on “Antigone’s Worldings,” that will explore the reception, adaptation, and criticism of Sophocles’ ancient drama in a global text, in the Fall of 2021.

Other screenings in this online/streaming series:

• Fri Sept 11, 7pm: Germany in Autumn (Alexander Kluge/Rainer Werner Fassbinder/Edgar Reitz/Volker Schlondorff/Alf Brustellin/Hans Peter Cloos/Maximiliane Mainka/Beate Mainka-Jellinghaus/Katja Rupe/Peter Schubert/Bernhard Sinkel, 1978, 119 min, West Germany, German with English subtitles, Color/B&W)
• Thu Oct 8, 7pm: The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (Tommy Lee Jones, 2005, 116 min, France/USA/Mexico, English & Spanish with English subtitles, Color)
• Thu Oct 29, 7pm: The Milk of Sorrow (La Teta Asustada) (Claudia Llosa, 2009, 98 min, Peru/Spain, Spanish/Quechua with English subtitles, Color)