Kapita

Forum Expanded 2021

“Ka-pi-ta”is the official job title given to Congolese charged with enforcing their white master’s bidding—through domination—over their fellow Congolese on plantations, in factories, in commerce, and other sites of capitalist extraction and production.
From one perspective, this history of exploitation in Congo is well documented from the colonial era to the present. There are a wealth of images of the copper and cobalt mines that fueled the industrial revolution, of the coltan and niobium mines that fuel the electronic revolution. But even in their efforts to reveal violence, such images often render the engines of exploitation invisible. By recoding archival footage and intertwining it with contemporary images, Kapita exposes patterns of extraction and burial to decode colonial representations—and exploitation—of central African land and people and mines the archival films for what they make invisible: the black-skinned workers evaporated by cameras calibrated to white, the collateral death and destruction interred in infrastructure. (Petna Ndaliko Katondolo)

by Petna Ndaliko Katondolo
with Precy Numbi, Mega Mingiedi, Chivas Tsongo, Sarah Mukadi USA 2020 Without language 22’ Colour & Black/White

Part of the Berlinale Summer Special

With

Precy Numbi (Robot)
Mega Mingiedi (Chief )
Chivas Tsongo (Goat Man )
Sarah Mukadi (Queen )

Crew

Written and Directed by	Petna Ndaliko Katondolo
Cinematography	Emmanuel Vinywasiki Katya
Editing	Petna Ndaliko Katondolo
Sound Design	Petna Ndaliko Katondolo
Sound	Jay Safari
Production Manager	Ganza Buroko
Producer	Cherie Rivers Ndaliko
Executive Producer	Cherie Rivers Ndaliko

Produced by

Alkebu Film Production

Berlinale Meets | Interview

Petna Ndaliko Katondolo

Petna Ndaliko Katondolo is a filmmaker, activist, and educator living in Goma and Chapel Hill. His multigenre artistic works are known for their decolonial Afrofuturistic artistic style, which engages historical content to address contemporary sociopolitical and cultural issues. In 2000 he co-founded Yole!Africa and in 2005 he founded the Salaam Kivu International Film Festival. Ndaliko Katondolo teaches and consults regularly for international organizations, addressing social and political inequity among marginalized groups through culture and education. After Matata (2019) and Kapita (2020) this is his third participation with Forum Expanded.

Filmography (selection)

2004 Théâtre Brûlé; 10 min. · Lamokowang; 13 min. 2005 Threatened Fate; 7 min. 2007 Pandisha Bandera; 45 min. 2010 Jazz Mama; 32 min. 2012 Melting Justice; 5 min. 2013 Mabele na Biso; 34 min. 2014 Myth Eyes; 3 min. 2016 The Dead Are Not Dead; 10 min. 2019 Danze; 21 min. · Matata; 37 min., Forum Expanded 2020 2020 Kapita; 22 min., Forum Expanded 2021 2021 Kumbuka

Bio- & filmography as of Berlinale 2022