The Tree of Authenticity

Democratic Republic of the Congo, Belgium2025documentary89'Docs+Science

In this documentary, the landscape remembers more than the people. Sammy Baloji, a Congolese visual artist, photographer and filmmaker, a co-author of ‘Rumba Rules, New Genealogies’ (2020), employs the archives of Yangambi, a historical centre of research on agriculture and tropical forests, as well as contemporary images of the Democratic Republic of Congo to demonstrate how knowledge about nature was used as a tool of colonial exploitation. Awarded at IFFR 2025, this visual essay gives voice to people and, above all, the eponymous tree – a non-human witness to history.