#Studio, the section dedicated to the intersection of cinema and the visual arts, presented on Friday, 14 November L’arbre de l’authenticité (2025), the feature debut of Congolese artist and photographer Sammy Baloji. The screening, held in collaboration with FESCAAAL – African, Asian and Latin American Film Festival, was followed by a conversation between the director and Alessandra Speciale.
L’ARBRE DE L’AUTHENTICITÉ
2025, 90’
Director: Sammy Baloji
Country: Democratic Republic of Congo
Distributor: Twenty Nine Studio & Production
Language: OV French and Dutch with Italian subtitles
In the largest rainforest in Africa, on the banks of the Congo River, once stood the INERA agronomic research station in Yangambi, one of the most advanced scientific centers of the colonial era. Today, it lies in ruins, swallowed by the jungle.
Winner of the Special Jury Prize at the 2025 International Film Festival Rotterdam, L’arbre de l’authenticité marks the feature film debut of Congolese artist and photographer Sammy Baloji. Divided into three chapters, the film weaves together firsthand accounts and scientific material to explore the legacy of colonialism and the origins of the ecological crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Through the stories of Paul Panda Farnana and Abiron Beirnaert, two scientists who worked at the research center between 1910 and 1950, and the symbolic voice of an ancient tree, narrator of human history, Baloji constructs an immersive and poetic tale that interrogates the past to decipher the present. “The story of Yangambi is not only about Congo. It is the story of the global economy and its consequences on people and the environment. The geographical location of Yangambi, together with its archive of data linked to the climatological observation of the equatorial forest, becomes a space through which I metaphorically question the consequences of human actions and our relationship with nature.” (Sammy Baloji)
BIOGRAPHY
Sammy Baloji is a multidisciplinary artist and photographer who lives and works between Lubumbashi and Brussels. Since 2005, his artistic practice has focused on analysing the historical and collective memory of the Democratic Republic of Congo, with particular attention to the cultural, architectural and industrial heritage of the Katanga region. Through installations, videos and photographic works, Baloji investigates the traces and consequences of Belgian colonisation, exploring the ways in which power structures and imaginaries inherited from the past continue to influence the present. Baloji has participated in numerous international events, including the Rencontres Africaines de la Photographie in Bamako (2007), the Lyon Biennale (2015), the 56th Venice Biennale (2015), the Photoquai festival at the Musée du quai Branly in Paris (2015), the Dakar Biennale (2016) and documenta 14 in Athens and Kassel (2017).
His works have been exhibited in numerous museums, including the Musée Royal de l’Afrique Centrale in Tervuren, the Tate Modern in London, the Africa Center in New York and the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art in Washington D.C.