Year: 1998
Country:
Congo/Belgium/France
Run Time:
93 minutes
It's been 11 years (sigh) since Eddie Murphy and Cleveland's Arsenio Hall had a hit with a trans-African premise in "Coming to America." Now Africa has answered - with a rollicking satire of crazy coincidences, near-misses, and mistaken and/or lost identities. King Mani Kongo of Bakongo decides to make his first journey to Europe since 1959 when, as a leading figure of the newly independent Belgian Congo, he was the new face of an optimistic infant nation. But that was many economic collapses and civil wars ago. Now old Mani Kongo dons his tribal fetishes again to return to Brussels to find Mwana, daughter of his favorite wife. Mwana went to Belgium for her own safety while still a child; by now Mani Kongo figures, she must have earned her medical degree and is ready to serve her country. In truth, Mwana is an ex-convict cabaret dancer in the semi-lawless African quarter, filled with crooks of all colors, where the king soon finds himself robbed, stripped, and no better off than the mulatto cabbie who befriends him. Despite its screwball arc from prince to pauper and back again, I.D. has a serious core, underlined by the opening dedication: "To the African Diaspora." (In French with English subtitles)
Screenplay
Mweze Ngangura
Director
Mweze Dieudonne Ngangura
Producer
Mweze Ngangura
Cinematography
Jacque Besse
Editing
Fr?nce Duez, Ingrid Ralet
Principal Cast
G?rard Essomba, Dominique Mesa, Jean-Louis Dalne, Herbert Flack, Muanza Goutier, Cecilia Kankonda
California Newsreel
149 9th St., Suite 420
San Francisco, CA 94103
tel: (415) 621 6196
fax: (415) 621 6522
Donate
Your donation helps fulfill our mission to promote artistically and culturally significant film arts through education and exhibition.