FILMMAKER RAOUL PECK TO SPEAK ABOUT LUMUMBA
ON FEBRUARY 27 AT MOUNT HOLYOKE COLLEGE

SOUTH HADLEY, Mass. – Raoul Peck, the director of Lumumba, the award-winning political thriller about the rise and brutal death of legendary African leader Patrice Emery Lumumba, will speak at Mount Holyoke Wednesday, February 27, at 7:30 PM in Gamble Auditorium. His talk is free and open to the public, and the auditorium is wheelchair accessible.

Named best film in several international film festivals in 2001, Lumumba is the first dramatization of facts that have recently come to light about the architects of Lumumba’s death a mere nine months after his rise to the office of prime minister of the newly independent Congo in June, 1960. Lumumba’s vision of a united Africa gained him powerful enemies: the Belgian authorities, who wanted a larger role in their former colony’s affairs; and the Central Intelligence Agency, which saw in Joseph Mobutu a more useful ally. Mobutu captured Lumumba and handed him over to be assassinated on January 17, 1961. He went on to rule the Congo for the next three decades, running it into dire poverty and unrest.

"At a time when our government is so involved abroad, it’s a good time to think about and respond to the lessons of its historical involvement," said Preston Smith, associate professor of politics and chair of African American and African studies. "Peck’s film is a window into this historical involvement. It also turns our attention to Africa, a continent that is not in our collective consciousness. Here was a leader, a nationalist, and someone with a progressive agenda, who had the potential to pull together a country. Who knows what Lumumba could have done at that important time of transition for colonialism to independence? Could he have mitigated the social problems, corruption, and violence that are all we hear of Africa now?"

The screenings and lecture are sponsored by the African American and African studies department, the Office of the Dean of the College and the Dean of the Students, the Film Studies Program, the Association of Pan African Unity, and the Mount Holyoke African and Caribbean Student Association.

Born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Peck moved to the Republic of Congo in 1961, fleeing the Duvalier dictatorship. He attended school in Leopoldville, then later in Brooklyn, New York, and Orleans, France. He began his career in industrial engineering before attending film school at the University of Berlin, where he received an M.F.A. in 1988. His award-winning films, including Lumumba: Death of a Prophet (1992) and The Man By The Shore (1993), have been featured in more than thirty festivals and released in the United States, France, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, Italy, and Canada.