The Congo Tribunal, 2015-17

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 see in it not only 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 and one month later in Berlin. For the first time in the history of this war, 3 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 stunning transmedia art project.

The installation, created for Artefact in co-production with Stroom Den Haag, involves the full-length 25h30m 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 project in Congo, hinting at the importance of the long-tail of this grand work.

The documentary The Congo Tribunal will be screened in Cinema ZED STUK on February 21 and February 22nd. On February 21st, the screening is followed by a Q&A with director Milo Rau. 

http://www.the-congo-tribunal.com/

Milo Rau (CH)
° 1977

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.