The Mbako Trial Myth and Reality

The film begins in the north-east of the Belgian Congo in 1933. Following reports of mysterious deaths in the region over several years, the Belgian colonial authorities arrest and put on trial a group of men suspected of belonging to the Mambela sect and of being responsible for these deaths as Aniotos, men who kill like leopards. Among them is Mbako, ritual chief and presumed leader of the Aniotos or leopard men. As the film progresses, the role of the accused is reversed and the colonizers' disregard for traditional customary law, social structures and traditional leaders and chiefs, as well as their devastating impact on local traditions, are scrutinized. 

The pioneer of African animation, Congolese stop-motion animator J-M Kibushi takes the Western imagination of the Anioto as a starting point for revisiting this episode in the history of today's Democratic Republic of Congo, challenging the racist and dehumanizing interpretation of the colonizers and the portrayal of leopard men as the ‘savage Other’. The Mbako Trial: Myth and Reality presents a post-colonial reinterpretation of the hearings and trial through animations, illustrations, a diorama, theatrical reconstructions, archive documents and interviews.