‘HEART, The Congo Chronicles’—

Documentary Follows Aviator

In Congo & Afghanistan

By Shannon Hicks

Booth Library will host a screening of HEART, The Congo Chronicles in its large meeting room on Thursday, September 24, at 7 pm. Kenneth Lundquist, Jr, the film’s director, co-producer, music composer and photographer, will host the screening.

The film is a chronicle of documentary films based on the adventure journal of the humanitarian aviator Jeffrey Luken Hartlage and his work in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo (DR); and Kabul, Afghanistan.

Mr Hartlage lived for more than a year in DR Congo. It was his decision, he says in one of the film’s trailers, to mourn the loss of a job as a corporate pilot by committing to a year of humanitarian flying.

“In Afghanistan I expected to find a war-ravaged nation where the Taliban had barred even the flying of kites,” Mr Hartlage says in The Congo Chronicles. “What I found was a tradition-bound culture completely foreign to my own. Kabul is a city whose past is linked to Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan, yet struggles to return to its former position as an economic crossroad between civilizations.

“Indeed it is a place where flying kites is as much a part of summertime play as baseball is to America.”

Following his tenure in Afghanistan, Mr Hartlage was assigned to work in Kinshasha. What he found there, he says in the film, was a city bordering on chaos, “where basic human needs were not being met and corruption trumped even the ravages of AIDS and malaria.”

He also found, he continued, “pockets of determined efforts to improve a destitute place. Several groups are committed to giving children hope before hopelessness sets in.”

Others are determined to make sure their children do not grow up in that environment. While in Kinshasha Mr Hartlage met a strong-willed mother who was insistent on rescuing her only child, Olga, from the cyclical poverty in a country also plagued by civil war and corruption. Based on his adventure journal and narrated by Mr Hartlage, HEART, The Congo Chronicles demonstrates the persistence of an African mother who loves her child enough to let her go.

The story follows Olga from the squalid conditions in the DR Congo to the relative opulence of her new home in Atlanta, Ga. The achievement not only changes the lives of the young girl and the gay male partners who adopt her, it also opens the door to subsequent US-Congolese adoptions.

The film was released in July and is traveling the film festivals. Its next appearance will be at Slick City Flick Fest, a Manchester based event coming October 8–11 (SlickCityFlickFest.com).

Among the festivals that are considering the film (“the most difficult part of the submission process,”) said Mr Lundquist are the Nevada Film Festival, November 20–22; Palm Springs International Film Festival, January 5–18; Slamdance Film Festival, January 21–28 in Utah; Sundance Film Festival, January 21–30; DOCNZ, a New Zealand event running February 27 to March 14; and Crossroads Film Festival, April 16–18, in Mississippi.

It has also been screened at Southbury Public Library and Starbucks Newtown. Both locations were able to offer preview screenings of the film before it was completed. The audience at Booth Library next week will be viewing the full film, the version that has been traveling to festivals and eliciting strong response.

“Of every screening that has been attended, the overwhelming response has been inspiration,” said Kenneth Lundquist, who will host next week’s screening. “They want to know more, and how they can help make a difference. The discussion really brings out that and so much more. As I watch folks watch the film, I see the myriad emotions pour over them. I see their heart breaking, and mending, all in the 84 minutes of the film.”

Mr Lundquist will guide an open dialogue as well as lead discussion of the humanitarian plot the film is based around.

Mr Lundquist operates KLJ, an arts consultancy based in Southbury that specializes in the creation and production of original music, film, theater, and poetry projects.

Current KLJ Films projects and clients include Oil Drum Art, Inc, for which the company has created promotional film and web media development; vocal studies, instructional lessons for The Renaissance Center, a community music school in Southbury; musicology lessons in piano performance, music theory and composition for Woodbury Guitar Studio; a series of literal arts sessions lectures and the direction of a music exhibition for qualified maximum security inmates as part of their rehabilitation program at Garner Correctional Institution; artistic direction of fundraising events and full-scale theatrical works for Main Street Theater Company in Woodbury; and research and fulfillment project for the creation of a visual arts complex to be called The Sullivan Complex, done for The Town of Southbury Cultural Economic Development.

Stewart Rein, an expert on international human rights and children’s law and the former executive director of The Children’s & Human Rights Council (UK), is a fan of HEART, The Congo Chronicles.

“This is an unbelievable story. The cinematography is stunning. After watching the first four minutes, I wanted to know what happens next,” he said.

For more information about The Congo Chronicles visit StartAtTheHeart.org. In addition to the Newtown screening, the film will also be presented on Friday, September 25, at 6 pm, at Bristol Historical Society, 98 Summer Street. There is a $5 fee for that program; call 860-582-6309 for details.