SWIMMING IN SPACE

SWIMMING IN SPACE

Anna Mbiya Katshunga | Germany, Congo 2011 | 43 Min. | OmeU

“Living conditions force us to reproduce those structures our government is criticized for.” The film SWIMMING IN SPACE links different perspectives to the same configuration of problems, anchored in the social, political and economic life of Lubumbashi (Democratic Republic of the Congo): On the one hand the perspective of Georges, an expatriate living in Berlin, who returns to his hometown after thirteen years and has to realize that the same structures he tried to fight under the Mobutu regime are still prevailing. On the other hand the perspective oftheateractors living in Lubumbashi, criticizing the behaviour of the government in their plays in a partially radical, partially careful, humorous or tragic manner and demanding considerable changes. This creates a dense picture of a society “up to its neck in the swamp of its past. However the heads stay afloat and the mouths call for a change.