Luc de Heusch (1927-2012) was a renowned Belgian anthropologist and filmmaker. He is best known for his anthropological work inspired by Claude Lévi-Strauss, his contribution to the analysis of rites and myths, sacrifice and possession, but also for his films devoted to art and his surrealist friends from the Cobra movement, as well as for his support of the independence of African countries and his criticism of colonialism. Among the film material deposited at the Cinémathèque royale de Belgique shortly after his death were rushes he shot in 1953 and 1954 in the centre of what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo, among the Tetela, Hamba and Nkutshu populations. The Cinémathèque royale de Belgique launched a project to digitise this material in order to make it available within an academic context. Le laboratoire d’excellence Les passés dans le présent de l’université Paris Nanterre, and the Cinémathèque de la Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles in cooperation with Marie Storck – wife of Luc de Heusch and daughter of Belgian filmmaker Henri Storck – has designed an initiative to bring new life to these unique and rare images, which bear witness to the sensitivity of their author. Luc de Heusch’s first short film from the field (Enterrement chez les Tetela), the only copy of which had been lost, was thus recreated, thanks to the text of the commentary. Two other short films (Lokoto and Nkutshu) were freely edited. The aim was that these precious images of inestimable value, his witnessing of daily life and rituals, could be shown again.
We invite you to discover these archive images of extraordinary historical and anthropological value.

Grace Winter and Damien Mottier