In Joanna Ratajczak’s Krakow FF project, after the death of Mong, the head of a Congolese clan, his biological daughter Monika becomes the new leader of the family – despite having grown up in an all-white Communist village in the Masuria district of Poland. Her new circumstances instil in her a need to find and unite other illegitimate members of the clan.
Joanna Ratajczak’s new documentary project Papa Was a King of Kongo stars the most engaging of subjects, Monika, the new titular head of a Congolese clan after the death of her biological father Mong.
Mong met Monika’s mother Danusia when he came to Poland from Congo to study medicine. When Danusia became pregnant, Mong hotfooted it. As the project notes state, “a sense of difference, rejection and longing for her dream father accompanied Monika throughout her childhood, contrasting with the idyllic nature and safety of her native village. These experiences shape her as a person of great sensitivity, reflectiveness and, despite everything, serenity.”
But at the age of 21 she discovered her father, still in Poland where he worked as a paediatric doctor. But the reunion was underwhelming. He may have been charming but he was “escaping from his responsibilities as a father,” as director Ratajczak puts it. As significantly, she discovered that she has numerous half-brothers and sisters.
After Mong died in 2020, Monika became, by Congolese tradition, the leader of the entire family. In her subsequent task to unite his children (and her siblings) from all over the world, Monika’s journey takes her to Płock, Poznań, London (where she has worked as an architect for 15 years), Hamburg and Congo. As the project notes state, “the journey also has a metaphorical dimension — the protagonist confronts her past, seeks her identity and tries to answer important questions: ‘who am I and what is my story?”
“[For] Monika, these are difficult topics, but the whole tone of the film will be, like my protagonist, light joyful and positive,” says Ratajczak. “And I think this is one of the main reasons why I feel I need to tell the story…Her driving force is gratitude and the curiosity about herself and her family.”
“I’ve known Monika for over 20 years,” the director adds. “We have a very intense and loving friendship and Monika likes to tell her story and I’m ready to follow her and accompany her with the camera. We are at the very, very beginning state of this project. We haven’t even started to shoot yet, but I’m very lucky to have a very experienced producer, Maciej Kubicki of Telemark.”
The mooted length of the €267,000 budget documentary, of which the majority is yet to be raised, is 72 minutes. Languages spoken will be Polish, English and French and the project will shoot September 2021-September 2022 ahead of delivery in 2023.
Monika’s desire is “to unite all his [Monk’s] children and [solve] this puzzle of the family that never had a chance before to be a family,” Ratajczak underlines. “We know so far about eight, maybe more, possibly having grown up like Monica as an only child in the white community, not knowing about the heritage and the whole family they have. So this film will be a journey which will take you through the different societies…a journey of great cinematic value.”
