Spectres

The latest in a series of works by Belgian artist Sven Augustijnen exploring the legacy of colonialism in contemporary Europe, Spectres takes as its starting point a controversial episode in Belgium’s history: the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, the first Prime Minister and democratically elected leader of Congo, which took place in Elisabethville (now Lubumbashi) on January 17, 1961. Jacques Brassinne de La Buissière, a former official of the colonial Congolese government, has spent more than thirty years investigating those responsible for this murder, aiming to shed light on what is considered one of the darkest chapters in the country’s past. The artist follows Brassinne on a journey that leads him to meet witnesses of the events and visit the sites where the brutal killing occurred. How does a country confront its colonial past? How does it process the suffering it inflicted on the nations it subjugated? Are those deemed guilty truly capable of bearing the weight of that guilt today? Borrowing its title from Jacques Derrida’s 1993 book Specters of Marx, the film questions Europe’s inability to face the ghosts of its past, revealing how they continue to shape the way we think and act in the present.