Oto Benga, what a powerful and intriguing movie!

March 3. Yesterday night was the start of the Africa World Documentary Festival at the Cave Hill, which will finish on March 6. I watched the first documentary titled Oto Benga (2015) by Niyi Coker Jr at the Cinematheque. What a powerful and intriguing movie!

Oto Benga was a Pygmy who was taken from the Batwa ethny in the Congo, brought by Verner Philip to St Louis, Missouri, US and shown in a Zoo along with animals. Hundreds and hundreds thousand people came to see him as the living example of Darwinian Evolutionism Theory. The attraction was so immense that churches were empty on Sunday, people prefered to visit the famous Oto Benga at the Zoo. A black man was shown to the world as the closest specie to chimpanzees. An extremely controversial film. Many scholars - anthropologists and historians - express their views on the subject. Oto Benga died in 1916 at the age of 32. Officially he committed suicide. But the story of his passing seems to hide some "untold" mysteries.

Niyi Coker Jr commented on the hard conditions of his work: he spent two weeks in the Equatorial Forest among the Batwa and lost 15 pounds. He flew to Luebo, DRC, to visit and interview Mr. Dibenga. To promote his film, he stated that he participates in film festivals across the US and that the Library of Congress holds on showing the movie because of the present racial turmoil in the US. A lot can be said on this movie since it shows all the stereotypes that separate Blacks and Whites or affirm the White supremacy. It raises the issue of the Caucasian superiority over other Non Western races, etc. Although I personally did not feel comfortable with it, I do not regret having seen it.