UNDER THE WHITE MASK: THE FILM THAT HAESAERTS COULD HAVE MADE

2020 | 9 min | VOSTA

Country of origin of director : Belgium
Country of production : Belgium
Country of recording : Belgium

SYNOPSIS :

This short film uses fragments of “Under the Black Mask”, a 1958 film about Congolese art directed by the Belgian artist Paul Haesaerts and qualified as colonial propaganda. This new film imagines what the masks, now subjects and not objects, would say. Aimé Césaire’s “Discourse on Colonialism” is spoken in Lingala for the first time. This speech is still a critical mirror for Europe. “Under the White Mask” is limited to elements already existing in 1958.

Official selections at the Sheffield Doc/Fest. (2021), at the Olhar de Cinema Curitiba International Film Festival (2021), at Doclisboa International Film Festival (2021), and at the Berlinale International Film Festival • Forum Expanded  (2021-2022).

BIOGRAPHIE DU CINÉASTE : 

Matthias De Groof was born in 1981 in Brussels, Belgium. He is a philosopher, film researcher and filmmaker. Matthias De Groof has published with Third Text, Columbia University Press, and Cambridge Scholars. He edited the book Lumumba in the Arts (Leuven University Press). His award-winning films have been shown at IFFR, Media City, the Pan-African Film Festival in Cannes, FIFA, and others.