Milo Rau 'The Congo Tribunal' foto: Fruitmarket / Thomas Schneider 2017
Milo Rau: The Congo Tribunal
Where politics fail, only art can help
Opening reception: Saturday 10 March, 17 hrs
by Axel Buyse, General Representative of the Government of Flanders
Part of See You in The Hague
"And with all the horrors shown in the film, it is important to me not to lose sight of hope. If ‘The Congo Tribunal' has proved one thing, it is that the truth can be found, no matter how complicated the connections are. And justice is possible, here and now. We just have to establish it."
(Milo Rau, director's statement)
For more than 20 years an inexplicable civil war is turning a territory as big as western Europe into hell on earth. Triggered by the Rwandan genocide in 1994, the Congo War, also called the "Third World War", has claimed more than six million lives. Many observers not only see in it a fight about political predominance in Central Africa, but also one of the most decisive economic battles for the share in the era of globalization. The reasons for the continuance of this war are no longer based on ethnic differences but rather on the hunt for raw materials which are essential for the 21st century's technology. Will the future order of the global community be decided here?
For The Congo Tribunal Milo Rau gathered victims, perpetrators, witnesses and analysts of the Congo War for a unique civil tribunal in eastern Congo. For the first time in the history of this war, three exemplary cases were heard, exposing an unveiled portrait of one of the biggest and bloodiest economic wars in the history of mankind. Milo Rau's The Congo Tribunal examines the causes and backgrounds to this global conflict in a unique and stunningly transmedia art project.
The installation, created for Artefact in co-production with Stroom Den Haag, involves the full-length 26h screenings of the tribunal in Bukavu and Berlin, the web game and VR installation focusing on a particular case discussed in the tribunal, a research space including the web archive and a variety of reading materials, and a short documentary about the impact of the documentary in Congo, hinting at the importance of the long-tail of this grand work.
www.the-congo-tribunal.com
At Stroom Den Haag The Congo Tribunal is part of the long-term program See You in The Hague, a multifaceted narrative about the ambitions and reality of The Hague as International City of Peace and Justice.
Acknowledgements:
The installation at Stroom Den Haag is a co-production with STUK, Huis voor Dans, Beeld en Geluid in Leuven (B) and made possible thanks to the General Representation of the Government of Flanders, the Mondriaan Fund and the City of The Hague.
The Congo Tribunal Transmedia is funded by the TURN Fund of the German Federal Cultural Foundation.
Milo Rau (1977, CH)
The Swiss director and author Milo Rau studied sociology, German and Romance languages and literature in Paris, Berlin and Zurich under Pierre Bourdieu and Tzvetan Todorov, among others. Since 2002, he has put out over 50 plays, films, books and actions. His productions have appeared at all of the major international festivals, including the Berlin Theatertreffen, the Festival d'Avignon, the Venice Biennale Teatro, the Wiener Festwochen and the Brussels Kunstenfestival, and have toured more than 30 countries worldwide. Rau has received many honours, most recently the Peter-Weiss-Prize 2017, the 3sat-Prize 2017, the 2017 Saarbrucken Poetry Lectureship for Drama and, in 2016, the prestigious World Theatre Day ITI Prize. Milo Rau will assume the directorship of the NTGent beginning in the 2018/19 season.
In 2016 Milo Rau gave a lecture in Stroom's The Knight's Move series.
Credits installation / transmedia
Artistic Director: Milo Rau
Producers: Arne Birkenstock, Sebastian Lemke, Olivier Zobrist
Scenography: Anton Lukas
Research, Casting and Dramaturgy: Eva-Maria Bertschy
Corporate Design: Nina Wolters
Web, Game, VR
Creative Director: Daniel Wagner
Technical Director: Christian Koschmieder
Producers: Arne Birkenstock, Sebastian Lemke, Roman Roitman, Olivier Zobrist
Script: Timo Maier, Daniel Wagner, Sebastian Lemke
Developers: Christian Koschmieder, Moritz Abeln
Visual Artists: Yves Kulondwa (aka Kayene), Daniel Wagner, Holger Schulz, Neysha Castritius, Lennart Troebs
Music: Marcel Vaid
Sound Design: Alon Kaplan, Timo Maier, Moritz Abeln
A production of Fruitmarket Arts & Media GmbH in collaboration with IIPM - International Institute of Political Murder, Langfilm / Bernard Lang AG, Lemafrika
Web, Game, VR developed and created by Monokel
On 25, 28, 29 and 30 March 2018
Film: The Congo Tribunal
Movies That Matter Festival 2018
The film The Congo Tribunal will be shown during the Movies That Matter Festival in The Hague on 25, 28, 29 and 30 March 2018. The film is presented in the context of the Camera Justitiae competition program, which features films and after-programs about legal dilemmas, truth-seeking, international law and the fight against impunity.
LINKS
www.the-congo-tribunal.com
international-institute.de/the-congo-tribunal
PRESS
Texte Zur Kunst, 3 May 2018
Den Haag FM (Kunstlicht), 25 March 2018 (interview Sofia Stolk of Movies That Matter) (in Dutch)
de Volkskrant, 22 March 2018 (interview Milo Rau) (in Dutch)
Dagblad 070, 27 February 2018 (in Dutch)
See also: THE CONGO TRIBUNAL (Official Trailer) from MAGNETFILM on Vimeo.
Programmalijn
see-you-in-the-hague