Congo in Four Acts

The Democratic Republic of Congo is the fourth biggest state in Africa. Though it possesses enormous mineral wealth its citizens are mired in poverty. This quartet of short, unpolished documentaries captures the tough reality in four parts of the desolate central African state. In the first film, Congolese filmmakers have documented the frustrating and lengthy process under which mothers leaving a jam-packed maternity hospital have to "pay" in jewellery and baby clothes. The second film depicts the problems of Kinshasa: overcrowding, a lack of drinking water, frequent flooding, and malaria linked to the rubbish that piles up everywhere. The city is in the west of the country, which is a war zone notorious for a high incidence of rape. The third of the films concerns the case of two teenagers who rape and rob a woman of their mother's age. The final film captures the fates of Congolese women and small children surviving on just a dollar a day and forced to take gruelling work breaking stones. (One World)