MOBUTU, ROI DU ZAÏRE

In November 1965 Mobutu Sese Seko, aided by foreign secret services staged a coup d’état and seized control of the former Belgian Congo. Over the next three decades the colourful and ruthless dictator ruled over the country he named Zaire, imposing peace through tyranny and repression, accumulating titles such as "Leader of the Revolution", "The Unifier", "The Pacifier" or "Father of the Country", while his brutal regime was backed by his friends in the West.

This film follows the meteoric rise of the son of a cook who became one of the richest and most feared men in the world. In carefully selected archive footage we see Mobutu as a young soldier, Mobutu the young journalist and Mobutu as private secretary to the African nationalist Patrice Lumumba during the negotiations in the 1960s that led to the end of Belgian colonial rule in the Congo. Later we see Mobutu, wearing his trademark leopard skin hat, and Mobutu with his friend George Bush in the White House. Belgian filmmaker Thierry Michel carried out 2 years of research and interviews to create this filmic portrait which avoids simplistic indictment but instead slowly builds up a picture of a canny, corrupt and self-indulgent despot, the self styled "King of Zaire".

See Congo River, Thierry Michel's new film in the competion 2006