Film Record: How an African Tribe Is Ruled Under Colonial Government

Identifier:

• 94795 (Source: National Archives)

Date produced: 1939

Filmmaker(s):

Ray L. Garner

Virginia Garner

Country of Production:

United States

Languages:

English

Length:

2 reels (725 ft)

Format:

16mm

Colour:

B&W

Sound Notes:

Silent

Awards/Recognition:

National Archives list of titled amateur films

Description:

"Contrasts life in Belgian Congo under Belgian colonial government to that of tribal rule." National Archives.

Resources:

This film is one of ten produced by the Garners as part of the Africa Motion Picture Project of 1938, which was funded by church denominations and the Harmon Foundation (Movie Makers, Nov. 1939, 559).

Virginia Garner, Images Out of Africa: The Virginia Garner Diaries of the Africa Motion Picture Project, University Press of America, 2011.

This film is a part of the Harmon Foundation Collection held by National Archives.

Some footage from the film is available through CriticalPast.

Locations:

• Democratic Republic of the Congo (Filming)

Subjects:

• Education
• Ethnology
•      Manners and Customs
• Indigenous peoples
• Medicine
• Africa

Genre:

• Documentary

Form:

• Short

Tags:

Repository:

Harmon Foundation Collection, National Archives

Viewing Notes:

"Reel 1: Shows life in Leopoldville under Belgian rule; holiday parade, African clerks and skilled workers, Belgian and tribal policemen; a territorial agent in village pins medals on tribal chiefs, giving them authority to take census, collect taxes, etc. Laborers register in Elizabethville for work permits. Reel 2: Through dramatization, contrasts effects of the western judicial system, which permits appeal, to native trials in which the witch doctor determines the verdict. A man accused under the old system, believing he will not be harmed, drinks poison to prove his innocence and dies. Closing montage shows better life under colonial rule in the Congo," via National Archives.

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