Over the past several years Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, has experienced a monumental shift in social structure. A center of warfare and death that has been raging throughout the Congo, Kinshasa is now at the heart of a change in the understanding of reality in the Congo.

Once populated by colonial Christian missionaries, Kinshasa is now dominated by post-colonial Pentecostalism that utilizes the over abundance of death to break down former barriers between the real and the imaginary in preaching of the coming apocalypse and resurrections. Biblical life is referenced on a regular basis by the people of Kinshasa. In the film Cemetery State Filip De Boeck chronicles the story of Kintambo, one of the oldest and largest cemeteries in Kinshasa. Over several visits De Boeck has witnessed and written about the changing treatment of death in the Congo. The youth of Kinshasa are frequently now in charge of the management of death rituals. The recent war and destruction that has wrought itself on the Congo has given the young responsibilities that they never had before, but with these responsibilities has come the onus of no longer being treated as young, and in turn they are no longer protected from death.

The Kintambo cemetery is overrun with the young. They take refuge among the tombstones from the apocalyptic conditions of everyday Kinshasa. Many of them have lost parents and would otherwise be homeless and fighting for their lives on the streets. Abandoned by the adult world, a community of these young has formed in the Kintambo cemetery. As De Boeck remarks, “the resemblance between these children and the dead that lie buried there is striking: both have been abandoned by society.” Because of a growing population within the cemetery, an economy has blossomed. When there are no plots available for a corpse, families illegally pay the young teenagers to find a place on top of another body. Later, caskets are dug up once funerals are over and resold to another family that cannot afford a new one. Old women sell their wares placed on top of the tombstones. Young musicians await customers in need of music for a funeral procession. This transformation from a quiet, solemn graveyard to a bustling marketplace reveals a breakdown in the Congo of the boundaries between life and death.

The film explores the life that surrounds the Kintambo cemetery. It follows a group of young grave diggers who earn their living managing the rituals of death. In addition, the film shows how funerals have become not only a time for mourning, but also a time to show disgust with the government of the Congo. In one interview, a mother has only enough money for a temporary grave for her child and so when the rain comes, the grave site will wash away and only her memory will serve as a reminder of where the child is buried. In another, a group of young boys finds an abandoned body by the side of the road, with the family of the body nowhere to be found, these boys take on the task of burying the anonymous corpse. These stories about life in the Kintambo cemetery are a microcosm of present day Congo in which the people have no more tears to shed and death has become another economy for the living.

Cemetery State tells the story of young people who live and work in the Kintambo cemetery. Their story is of a new Congo in which the young eat, sleep, smoke marijuana and earn money in the cemeteries. It is not disrespectful; it is a change in the understanding of life and death. Death has become ordinary and no longer deserves any more recognition than a street corner. And with most street corners too dangerous, the young find their home among the dead. |

Cemetery State will be shown on April 28 at the Africa Film Festival.