Cinerevolt: Commando 52 + The Laughing Man

doors open at 20:00 * intro & film start at 20:30. This is the second movienight by a new collective of film programmers at Joes.

Commando 52 (1965) & The Laughing Man (1966)

Directed by Walter Heynowski & Gerhard Scheumann.

Duration: 37 mins + 66 mins

In German with English Subtitles

Today we hear of the Congo by means of its minerals first, and its people second. One determines the other: cobalt means poverty, gold means war, diamonds mean repression. There was a time when this dynamic was challenged, as Patrice Lumumba did when he asked "all Congolese citizens, men, women and children, to set themselves resolutely to the task of creating a national economy and ensuring our economic independence". Nominal independence is no problem, economic independence is unforgivable. Mere months after taking office, Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba was removed from office, kidnapped, and eventually assassinated with the support of the American, British, and Belgian intelligence agencies. In the imperialist war on Congolese self-determination, brutal merdenaries came down upon the Lumumbaist rebels of the Simba and Kwilu rebellions. It is upon these agents of destruction, the mercenaries, that Heynowski and Scheumann train their lens. The two East-German filmmakers first made Commando 52, a short documentary combining still photographs taken of the mercenaries in Congo with interviews and voice over narration. The second film, The Laughing Man, was made by posing as West-German journalists in order to interview Siegfried Muller. The film consists of this single interview with Muller, a Nazi-turned-mercenary charged with the destruction of Lumumbaist rebels. Together these two films paint a sinister portrait of the perpetrators of these atrocities and the narratives they live in, and demonstrate clearly the direct translation of Nazism into American & NATO imperialism.

Films Begin at 20:30.