France, Germany and Switzerland / 1990 / 69mins / Biography, Documentary / French

Lumumba: La Mort du Prophète offers a unique opportunity to reconsider the life and legacy of one of the legendary figures of modern African history. Like Malcolm X, Patrice Lumumba is remembered less for his lasting achievements than as an enduring symbol of the struggle for self-determination. This deeply personal reflection by acclaimed filmmaker Raoul Peck on the events of Lumumba's brief twelve month rise and fall is a moving memorial to a man described as a giant, a prophet, a devil, "a mystic of freedom," and "the Elvis Presley of African politics."

Raoul Peck

Born 1953 in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Peck lived for a time in Zaire and worked as a journalist and photographer. He later graduated from the Berlin Film Academy in 1988, made a dozen short and features from his Velvet Productions, based in France and Germany, and served until recently as the Minister of Culture of Haiti. A book of screenplays and images from four of Peck's major features and documentary films, called Stolen Images, was published in February 2012 by Seven Stories Press. He has been Chairman of La Fémis, the French state film school, since January 2010. In 2012, he was named as a member of the Jury for the Main Competition at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. He won the Best Documentary prize at the Trinidad & Tobago Film Festival in 2013 for Fatal Assistance. His documentary film I Am Not Your Negro (2016), about the life of James Baldwin and race relations in the United States, was nominated for an Oscar in January 2017. Learn More