L’Arbre de l’Authenticité

On the banks of the Congo River, in the world’s second-largest rainforest, lie the remains of the INERA research station in Yangambi, one of the largest tropical agricultural research centers established by the West. Today, it is a tangle of jungle and ruins that still raises questions about power and access to knowledge. Based on research from the 1930s, in his compelling first feature film, photographer and artist Sammy Baloji tells the story of the stigma of ecological destruction that began during the Belgian colonization, through the voices of two emblematic yet semi-obscure scientists who worked at Yangambi between 1910 and 1950: Paul Panda Farnana, a Congolese agronomist and the first African colonial official, and the Belgian colonial official Abiron Beirnaert. Baloji invites us to move beyond an anthropocentric understanding of climate change by giving voice—through an intimate inner monologue—to an old tree, witness to decades of history. The result is a fascinating reflection on how extraction can take multiple forms, even within the framework of sustainability.