Congo River, au-delà des Tenebres (2005) a.k.a The Congo: River of Grace, Water of Life showed Tuesday at 7 p.m. at the Maru-a-Pula School, A/V Centre (Gaborone Film Society).

This is an amazing film. Director and scriptwriter Thierry Michel works at the Institut des Arts de Diffusion where he also was a student starting when he was 16 in 1968. He thus has 40 years of experience in the cinema. He made news programmes and documentaries for Belgian television. In the last 25 years he has made 15 movies in Europe, Africa and elsewhere. His second feature film took him to Morocco, Issue de Secours a.k.a Emergency Exit about the desert. He also made Somalie, l'Humanitaire s'en va-t-en guerre a.k.a Somalia-Humanitarians go off to War. One of his most famous films is about a hospital in Conakry, Guinea, "Donka, radioscopie d'un hopital africain" (1996) a.k.a "Donka, X-Ray of an African Hospital". He has won many awards for his movies.

He has made five films about the Congo including Congo River; Mobutu, roi du Zaire (1999) a.k.a Mobutu, King of Zaire; and Zaire, le cycle du serpent (1998) a.k.a Zaire, the Cycle of the Serpent. His two earlier films on the Congo are "Les Derniers colons" a.k.a "The Last Colonists" and then "Nostalgie post-coloniale" a.k.a "Post-Colonial Nostalgia". Beginning in 1904 the Belgians and their serfs built a variety of train lines to provide communication for those areas not served by the river and before 1960 there were on some up to four trains a day. Today there are none.

Botswana has its Kalahari, the Congo its River. It is a very different world, verdant, humid overflowing with life of all kinds. The Congo River winds from its source near Zambia in the southeast 4,371 km to the Atlantic Ocean. It forms the largest river basin in the world at 1.5 million square miles, but only the 1,700 km between Kinshasa and Kisangani (there are 100 km of rapids at Stanley Falls) are fully negotiable by riverboats and barges. At points the river is so wide you cannot see across it. With the collapse of most rail and train routes in the Congo since 2000 the river has remained its primary artery of commerce and communication. The river spans both the southern and northern hemispheres and its sources of rainfall balance its level so that it is fairly consistent throughout the year-most of the world's rivers are subject to tremendous variations in levels and flooding. Below Malebo Pool where Brazzaville and Kinshasa are lie Livingstone Falls, and 300 km of rapids and cataracts. If a hydroelectric scheme is built at Inga Rapids it could service all of SADC and export electricity to Europe. Botswana would benefit immensely from such a scheme. In 2005 over most of the year Thierry Michel filmed 160 hours of footage in the Congo. This was painstakingly edited to make the two-hour feature film to be shown on Tuesday.

Though it starts at the ocean, it leaves out the lower Congo and Brazzaville and Kinshasa. Even without these it contains some amazing scenes of a life totally different from Botswana. The long second part of the film takes us down the river, for 1,734 km, on a collection of barges pushed and shoved by a diesel tender. Six months was spent preparing to film. Then three months was spent filming on the river and an additional four months for the other sections. The main danger on the river comes from shifting sandbars and the absence of reliable charts. We slowly get to know the Captain, an amazing personality. He has been 25 years on the river with no accidents. The stops at various shattered ports along the river are disturbing. At Yangambi they reveal a university with one professor. The captain tries to help free a collection of barges that is stuck but fails. When he gets stuck he succeeds in freeing his floating village. It is made up of people with everything including goats, chickens and pigs. Religious ceremonies along the river are captured. A number of Mobutu's decaying palaces are visited, outrageous in their lost lavishness and squandered resources.

Up stream from Kisangani filming was more difficult. Thierry Michel and his crew were stopped and arrested. The most amazing footage is of the Mai Mai, the children of the river, and their atrocities. The most shocking is of rape victims in a hospital. The doctors had treated 2,012 women; 86 required surgery. Lumumba's grave is visited and with a degree of reverence. But Thierry Michel has avoided making a sensational movie like the Italian flick "Mondo Cane" (1961) and even left out of this film footage that is more upsetting than what is in.

"Congo River" is nearly two hours long. It is in French with English subtitles. The director is Thierry Michel. The cinematographer is Michel Techy. The editors are Bernard Gabu and Philippe Beaudin. The music is by Lokua Kanza. The narrators are Lye Mudaba Yoka, Thierry Michel and Olivier Cheysson.