Mweze Ngangura's comedy about a Congolese king (Mani Kongo) who travels to Brussels in search of his daughter whom he believes is a medical student. As soon as he enters the Westernized world he finds his identity challenged. At the travel agency in Kinshasa, young urban hipsters mistake his royal fetishes for a fashion statement, and customs officials try to confiscate them as imported art objects. Eventually, robbed, homeless and penniless, he is tricked into pawning his royal regalia, literally his "pieces of identity," to an unscrupulous Belgian art dealer. Meanwhile, the Mani Kongo's daughter suffers the precarious position of an immigrant without properpapers, is forced to dance in a night club by a police officer with a background as a colonial official in the Congo. Little do father and daughter know that they have each been befriended by the same cab driver.
Post film discussion by: Fassil Demisse, DePaul University
Location
Du Sable Museum of African American History
740 East 56th Place
Chicago, ILUnited States
