My Television Debut

Last month, I had my television debut on RTNC, which is the state network here. I appeared on a program called, Midi Culture.

Actually, I was just tagging along with my Intended, who was the real television star for the afternoon. After her presentation of the film When We Were Kings about the 1974 Ali-Foreman fight in Kinshasa, the media requests for newspaper, radio, and television were piling up. So she was to be the guest on a cultural affairs talk show. As the good host I am, I accompanied her through a military contingent to the studio. Then, with a couple of minutes to “On Air,” I heard the producer saying, “Get a fourth chair on stage.” Uh. OK. I was not wearing a jacket or tie, and I hadn’t shaved in quite a while (because we didn’t have water at the house for a few weeks). Well, I buttoned the top button of my shirt at the suggestion of the host, and that was that. A couple of minutes later, I was live on television in the largest francophone city in the world.

The hosts were Florence, a young actor, and Bobina, a film professor at the Catholic university in Kinshasa. The questions were mainly to my Intended, about cinema in the US and her impressions of Kinshasa. Bobina was an impressive guy, and they had a nice conversation with her about cinema, spectatorship, and the production of images. A discussion that could have easily became a lament about the absence of film culture in Kinshasa really took shape as a constructive dialogue about what film culture is and can be, suggesting ways that it can be developed. Kudos to the participants.

Me, I was mainly a spectator. I smiled and nodded my head in agreement. But I looked good doing it…