| The extraordinary and tragic saga of 267 Congolese, brought
to Brussels for the 1897 World's Fair. After some four months
of travel towards Belgium, they are exhibited before a million
visitors. Subjected to the crushing gaze of the "Whites"
and the cold climate, many fell prey to disease and even some
lost their lives. The dead were hastily dispatched in a common
grave, sparking a fierce debate in Belgian society. The project
was overblown, but necessary in the eyes of the first colonizers,
who presumed to have tamed the far-flung savages. One hundred
years later, Congolese compatriots return to the scene of
these events and question the "Whites" of today
on the incredible story of that "human zoo". They
carry out the ritual of "a return to the earth"
by way of reparation for too great a hurt
A film that
revisits a century of stereotyped conceptions about the Africans.
And running through it, the almost aching question: "How
is today different?"
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