23 05 11 Twitch talks exclusively to VIVA RIVA! director Djo Munga

 

JM – VIVA
RIVA! blew me away.
It's exciting, sexy and stylish in a way I didn't expect from a film
from the
Democratic Republic of the Congo. It's clearly made by someone who knows
& loves movies. As someone born and raised in Kinshasa, tell me
about the films that
you saw growing up.

DM – It's probably difficult
for people to imagine, Kinshasa in the 70s was very different. There were two
theatres in my neighbourhood, so I used to watch a lot of films. These were
mainly Westerns – Sergio Leone's movies, Django and all these guys. Also we had
kung-fu films, a lot of Bruce Lee and all that genre. And of course we had a
few French movies, but I don't really remember them. Also King Kong and these
Japanese things like Godzilla, they were really important.

JM – So there was no chance
of you ever making romantic comedies then?

DM – [Laughs] I didn't think
about it at the time, but you know, in a dictatorship like Zaire (as the DRC
was named from 1971-1997) you basically had gangsters running the country, so
there's probably a certain mindset that identifies with gangsters and violence
rather than with romance or comedy. That's probably why SCARFACE is one of the
most popular films in Africa, even 30 years after its release, because people
relate to that world.

JM – How old were you when
you decided that this was something you wanted to do, or realized it was
something somebody could do professionally?

DM – Oh it was not that easy.
When I moved to Europe I studied at Art School and my aim was to become an oil
painter or get into advertising or become a cartoonist. But one day I wandered
into a filmmaking workshop, and I wouldn't say that I enjoyed it at that
moment, but something happened. It was very difficult, as an African, to say to
myself I'm going to make films for a living, and it really was at the last minute
that I realized there was something important there. So then I applied to a
film school in Brussels.

JM – When you left Kinshasa
for Belgium, did you go alone or with your family?

DM – At the time people were
aware that Mobutu (Zaire's dictator) wasn't putting any more money into
education, and eventually the system collapsed. So, people who were Middle
Class or Upper Class, like my parents, sent their children abroad to boarding
school. So I went away for five years and my parents would visit from time to
time. I arrived in Brussels in 1981, was at boarding school until 1986, started
art school in 1988 and entered film school in 1993.

JM – Were you influenced in
any way by the European style of filmmaking?

DM – [Laughs] No, not at all.
Twenty years ago things were quite different. I'm not saying there were racial
issues, but you would stick within your own community. You go to school, you
have friends, but apart from that their wasn't really any connection to the
French or European communities.

JM – So you found yourself
living mostly with other African expatriates…

DM – Yes, exactly. But
instead what I did was, do you remember the old videotapes, VHS? Back in the
early 80s we had the first video club, at least in Europe, which was a little
thing for specialists. We had all the horror movies, not so much the action,
but the classic movies, which were available. So every weekend I'd go down
there and chat with the guy and that's how I discovered Cronenberg and all the
horror greats of the time, as well as interesting directors like Coppola,
Scorsese and all these guys. So in terms of film and culture, my education was
more through the cine club, and VHS was really important.

JM – So after you acquired
your filmmaking education…

DM – Well I'm still not sure
I feel qualified! I still have the same questions as I did 18 years ago when I
started film school. I always hope that the next film will give me the answers
but it never does really. But let's see.

JM – Weren't you tempted to
head west to ply your trade as a filmmaker? What prompted you to return to the
Congo, where there is no industry?

DM – I think it was the
Toronto Film Festival, 10 years ago they had a section called Planet Africa and
I had a short film playing there. When I came to Toronto and showed my film,
which was a modest story about a little Congolese boy living with his sister in
Belgium, I was really surprised how much the audience liked and understood the
film. For me it was like that moment when you see the light, I realized that I
could go back to Congo and make films there and enrich the international
audience. Also, 2001 was a very difficult time in Congo because of the war, but
there was this question of responsibility, in terms of at least trying to do
something in Congo. We were supposed to leave, study, and then come back. That
was the debate, and I decided to go back.

JM – When you returned and
tried to get your project off the ground, what was the local reaction? Were
people supportive or did they think you were crazy?

DM – People didn't really
believe that it was possible, and I'm not the type of person to convince
someone to do something if they don't want to. So I embraced it as a personal
journey, but at the beginning it was not very successful. It was really tough,
really difficult.

JM – Did you have any
connections or people that you could go to for help and support?

DM – No, not really. I
started work as a line producer in documentaries, so I did little jobs for
Belgian television first, then I got a big job with the BBC. I made a film for
them in 2003 about King Leopold (WHITE KING, RED RUBBER, BLACK DEATH about the
Belgian monarch's acquisition and exploitation of Congo). After that, a Danish
production asked me to work on something else and I entered into this world of
making these historical movies, which were very interesting and I met great
people. After that I kept working, I wasn't making a lot of money but that
wasn't too important.

JM – Your background in
documentaries is hugely evident when watching VIVA RIVA! and your ability to
capture the local environment authentically. What the response was from the
locals while you were filming on location?

DM – People were really easy,
and sometimes I was even embarrassed because we were shooting in these very poor
areas and people were inviting us into their homes to film. And I wanted it to
be real, but you hit that point when you ask yourself do we really have to do
this? Is this fiction or is it documentary? But they really made it very easy
for us on all levels. Whether we needed a house or a car or when we were
shooting the nude scenes – the women were asking me why I wanted to do it and I
told them that the idea was to be as real as possible, to accurately portray
our society today. Once they got that, it was easy.

JM – I imagine you used a lot
of non-professional actors, real people playing characters similar to
themselves.

DM – I tried to tell them to
invent a character who looks like you and talks like you but is a bit
different. There is also a culture of improvising, so we rehearsed a lot and
they were changing dialogue so I used these changes and incorporated them into
the script. So it's that combination – part of them, part of the script – and
finding a chemistry that works.

JM – Some of your lead
actors, like Patsha Bay (who plays Riva) and Manie Malone are already professionals. How did you
find and recruit them for the project?

DM – I had many levels of
casting. I hired a French casting director, who saw about 350 or 400 people
maybe, and she selected 20 people. And that included most of the main cast of
the film, except Manie, Patsha and the Commander was not there either. I bumped
into Marlene (Longange), who plays the Commander, whom I knew from her theatre
work, but she told me she had stopped acting because it was too hard. I invited
her to the casting anyway, just to see if she was interested and of course she
was great!

For Manie (who plays the
film's femme fatale, Nora) it was more complicated. I was aware there might be
a problem finding an actress in Kinshasa willing to do the things Nora does –
or anywhere in Africa. I mean, the nude scenes and the violence, it's not
usual. So I wrote the character as someone who could be foreign. Also, I
couldn't find anyone in Kinshasa who had that magical spark needed for a woman
in a gangster movie. These femmes fatales must be special, right? Then at the
last minute, by accident Manie came to a casting in France. She had this glow,
she was both wild and elegant. But I didn't give her the part right away, I
invited her to come to Kinshasa for two months' training, to learn Lingala and
to explore the environment and then if she got through that I'd give her the
part. And that's exactly what happened, she came, she's a hard-working person,
very motivated and she got the part.

JM – So what's next for you
and next for Congolese Cinema?

DM – Well what I have in mind
next is to set up a Congo-China story, which is why I was in Hong Kong for the
festival, because I wanted to meet people. In the last 20 years we've seen a huge migration of Chinese
into Africa and China has changed Congo, but also the Chinese change when they
move to Congo. This is an interesting dynamic. It'll be a feature film, a
gangster film – another film noir, because I feel comfortable in that genre.

JM – So there is some tension
with Chinese gangs setting up in Congo?

DM – Yes but I want to
describe both worlds, you know, the Chinese gangs, but also the Congolese
gangs, but they're more like bankers and people in the government – these are
all the gangsters in Congo! So the good guys – a Chinese cop and a Congolese
cop – will be teaming up, trying to do something.