Director: Clemente Bicocchi
Produced by Terence Ward & Fourlab
Italy/2012/75min
Brazzaville, in the Republic of Congo, is the only African capital to retain the name of a European: Pietro Savorgnan di Brazza, the Italian-born explorer who set out for Central Africa in 1875. In spite of the fact that Brazza’s efforts lead to the establishment of a French colony, he is still revered in Congo as a model of European-African relations that stands in contrast to Henry Stanley, who claimed a neighboring section of the Congo region for Belgium.
Using an innovative blend of animation, puppetry, archival material, and original documentary footage, BLACK AFRICA WHITE MARBLE traces Brazza’s incredible original journey through the Congo, but the focus is a present-day David-and-Goliath story centered on Brazza’s common European and African descendents. A century after Brazza’s suspicious death, Sassou Nguesso, the President of the Republic of Congo, plans to transfer the explorer’s remains from his grave in Algiers to a multi-million dollar marble mausoleum in Congo’s impoverished capital. However, one woman stands in the way….