Screening of « The Tree of Authenticity » (2025) by Sammy Baloji In partnership with Institut audiovisuel de Monaco

The screening will be followed by a videoconference discussion with the artist.

The Tree of Authenticity
Belgium, Congo, 2025, color, 89 min.
Director: Sammy Baloji. Screenplay: Ellen Meiresonne, David Van Reybrouck, Thomas Hendricks.

In the heart of the Congo’s equatorial forest, the remains of a research center dedicated to tropical agriculture reveal the heavy legacy of the colonial past and its close links to the pressing issue of climate change.

In the heart of the equatorial forest in Yangambi, DRC, amid a jumble of jungle and ruins, one of the largest research centers dedicated to tropical agriculture now stands as a living testament to the climate crisis. […] In this excavation, artist and researcher Sammy Baloji draws on the voices of two iconic scientists who worked at the center: Paul Panda Farnana, an agricultural engineer and the first black Congolese civil servant in the Belgian administration, sent there at the beginning of the 20th century for the industrial exploitation of latex, and Abiron Bernaert, a Flemish agricultural engineer in charge of palm oil production during World War II. These scripted narratives, complemented by the voice of a majestic 300-year-old tree that has become a national symbol, skillfully highlight the legacy of colonial modernity in today’s greedy exploitation of natural resources.

Since 2005, Sammy Baloji (born 1978, Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of Congo) has been exploring the memory and history of the Democratic Republic of Congo. His work is an ongoing investigation into the cultural, architectural, and industrial heritage of the Katanga region, as well as a questioning of the impact of Belgian colonization. His use of photographic archives allows him to manipulate time and space, comparing old colonial narratives with contemporary economic imperialisms. His video works, installations, and photographic series highlight the ways in which identities are shaped, transformed, perverted, and reinvented. His critical view of contemporary societies serves as a warning about how cultural clichés continue to shape collective memories, allowing social and political power games to dictate human behavior. As he stated in a recent interview: “I am not interested in colonialism as nostalgia, or as something that belongs to the past, but in the perpetuation of this system.” Sammy Baloji lives and works in Brussels and Lubumbashi.

The NMNM and the Institut audiovisuel de Monaco collaborate by programming the creations of artists whose practice lies halfway between cinema and contemporary art: films that are unique in their form, their narrative system, but also in their mode of production and distribution.

THÉÂTRE DES VARIÉTÉS
1 bd. Albert Ier – Condamine Parking. Night rate starting at 7 p.m.
Quick access from the train station (Port Hercule exit).

Tickets on sale at the venue on the day of the screening from 6:30 p.m.
> €8
> €4 for students and under 21s
No credit card payments – Carlo payments accepted