The Dutch artist Renzo Martens spent two years in the Democratic Republic of Congo to produce a brutally honest look at how the NGO-and-media world packages poverty for Western consumption.  What gets included and what gets left out leads Martens to his provocative thesis that poverty is Africa’s ‘greatest resource’ and Africans need to assert ownership. Martens’ first film raises difficult questions. A gritty, uncomfortable offering that brought outraged responses from some of the NGO and media people in the audience.

*RS*

This article is from the July-August 2009 issue of New Internationalist.

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