Omen

Four Congolese people accused of practising sorcery forge very different spiritual paths in this electrifying Cannes award-winning cinematic mixtape.

Koffi has spent most of his life in Belgium. Now, he brings his pregnant fiancée Alice to visit his home country, Congo, hoping to reconnect with his family. Sadly, the superstitions that drove him away are unchanged: his mother still believes his port-wine birthmark is a sign of evil. Meanwhile, Koffi’s younger sister Tshala (Eliane Umuhire, Neptune Frost, MIFF 2022) is torn between her liberated sexuality and her ambivalent pull towards traditional spirituality. And tutu-wearing gangster Paco has embraced and even monetised the sorcery stigma – as he grieves his sister’s death, he makes psychedelic voyages into the spirit realm.

Congolese-Belgian hip-hop artist Baloji makes his feature directorial debut with this vivid, sensuous film that won the 2023 Un Certain Regard New Voice Prize at Cannes. With prodigious storytelling skill, Baloji wrestles genres and explodes the limits of onscreen realism as he explores themes of identity, memory and patriarchal trauma. While it occasionally recalls the satirical Zambian tale of I Am Not a Witch (MIFF 2017), this staggering, visionary work also alludes to a dangerous nostalgia in Congo for the ‘authentic’ folk beliefs that once legitimised Mobutu’s murderous dictatorship – thereby acting as its own form of omen.