Dutch firebrand iconoclast Renzo Martens is taking on Jesus in his next project, which he pitched at CPH:FORUM. Part fiction/part documentary, the film resembles Milo Rau’s The New Gospel in many respects, but a key driver for Martens is to enable the Congolese cast and crew, led by Matthieu Kasiama (who plays Jesus), to buy back the land stolen from them over 100 years ago, using their participation fees paid up front.
The other project pitchers in Copenhagen were Danish producer Sigrid Dyekjær (Real Lava) and German producer Heino Deckert (Ma.ja.de). The main producer is Dutch Frans van Gestel of Topkapi Films.
The film, currently in development, is budgeted is 1.2 million euros, and the cost of the land purchase will be 100,000 dollars, Martens told the Forum assembly. (A similar concept was devised and executed in Martens’ White Cube [2018] in which Congolese plantation owners use the profits from an exhibition of their artwork in a New York art gallery to buy back the land confiscated from them by Unilever.)
For the new film, “the Gospel that was brought by the missionaries and used to steal his [Matthieu’s] land, he wants to use that very same Gospel to buy back the land again,” underlined Martens of the concept.
In the fictionalised part of the film, Jesus arrives as a Black plantation worker in 1921. Calling out the hypocrites, preaching equality and liberation from oppression, Jesus says: “Black men will be white, and white men will be Black.” The narrative is based on prophecies of the Congolese prophetess Kimpa Vita, and closely follows the life and death of prophet Simon Kimbangu.
But once the land is bought, there is a debt to be paid, at which point the film’s central question arises (equally at which point I refer to the project notes for accuracy). “Who will benefit from a crucifixion of a new Black Jesus? The plantation workers? Will the plantation company that confiscated these lands benefit from newfound inclusivity? Audiences in Europe who have been fed by this plantation? The film industry? Or Renzo Martens, the director, who wants to make The Gospel, and take on the guilt of colonialism, but then also throw it off. Matthieu Kasiama puts the crucifixion – and therefore the entire production – at stake. He refuses to be pressured by the financiers and suggests a solution: a dice game will determine whether or not he will be crucified.”
During his pitch, Martens asked the question again forthrightly to the Copenhagen audience? “Does anybody want to step in? And is anybody willing to hang on that cross?”
Co-producer Sigrid Dyekjær of Real Lava commented: “What I love about Renzo’s work is he’s an artist and he’s a filmmaker. And when you embark on a story with him, you kind of have an idea of where you start, but you are not always sure where exactly you are going, but you know it’s gonna be goddamn exciting.”
Panellist Barbara Truyen, Head of Docs and Commissioning Editor for Dutch Public Broadcaster VPRO, was equally effusive as she picked up Dyekjær’s point. “I don’t have a clue where you’re going to. I don’t know when it will be done,” she said to Martens. “Because that’s what we know with White Cube, that it will take five more years than we expect – but that’s all fine because now we know that’s how you work.”
Then, addressing the audience: “So if you come on this journey, and I think everyone should come on this journey, you’ll have a fantastic time. You won’t know where you’re ending up. It could be a brilliant failure, but I don’t think it will be. I love it.”
