The Tree of Authenticity

The Tree of Authenticity plunges us into the belly of the colonial economy and its devastation of the environment through the intertwined stories of two men who once worked at a tropical agriculture research center in Yangambi, during the era of the Belgian Congo. One, a Congolese agronomist — the first Black civil servant in the Belgian colonial administration — was sent there in 1909 to oversee the industrial exploitation of latex. The other, a Flemish agronomist, served as director of palm oil production during the Second World War, and a smuggler in his spare time. Both would ultimately be swallowed by this land — as hostile as it was bewitching.

Yet beyond these two individual fates, The Tree of Authenticity is above all a profound meditation on humanity’s illusions when confronted with the non-human universe. Science, rationality, modernity, the exploitation of natural resources, colonial empires, wars, social and racial hierarchies, identity, racism… The trees — implacable witnesses to this turmoil since time immemorial — are not deceived: humankind’s thirst for control over its environment feeds its ambitions, yet sows only destruction in its wake. Lost in a forest of dreams, when will they finally understand?

At once a political essay and a visual poem, the film weaves together images (the ruins of the present), narration (the archives and testimonies of the past), and sound (the creaking of trees and other murmurs). Three powerful voices that, each in their own way, question the legacy of the colonial past and the future of the planet. In the tawny night of ravenous hopes, is it possible to be both here and elsewhere? Lileko is speaking to you — you only need to listen.

Barbara Caretta-Debays
Editor at Écosociété