MOBUTU, ROI DU ZAÏRE

“Mobutu, roi du Zaïre” is a revealing portrait of Joseph Désiré Mobutu, the military dictator. For more than 30 years Mobutu reigned as a charismatic and predatory dictator as if the country was his own fief. More than 950 hours of material out of archives from the whole world were looked at. Some 30 hours of unedited and previously unseen material was found in Kinshasa. More than 50 hours of new interviews were filmed. The result of this cautious search and editing is an impressive historical puzzle. We follow Mobutu in his process of personal growth, glory and inevitable decay and destruction. We see Mobutu as a master manipulator who knew exactly how to play on the current political situation.