Best Documentary
Deadliest Journeys - Congo’s trucks
Five times bigger than France, third largest country in Africa, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is, foremost, one of the world’s richest countries in raw materials. There’s cobalt, mainly used in mobile phones and the aeronautics industry, copper, zinc, gold and diamonds in astounding quantities. Our cameras focused on Katanga, a province in the south of the DRC, which has three quarters of the country’s wealth. We accompany Eugene, owner of a truck, laden to the top with goods, that must travel from Lubumbashi, the country’s economic capital, to his native city of Bukama, 400 miles to the north. The journey from Lubumbashi to Bukama takes four days. At the wheel is « the prince of the highway », answering to the name of Domingo, aided by three escorts: Elephant, Bijou and Maroquin. They cling onto the outside of the truck and are the driver’s eyes and ears throughout the journey. We accompanied them for the whole of the trip, a nightmare along almost totally unusable roads, an African remake of the « Wages of Fear » set against a background of organized looting of the country’s wealth by three principal countries: China, India and the USA. -
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Published Apr 8, 2018
