Museum Rietberg

The 18th-century Indian painter Nainsukh of Guler receives a poetic, visually stunning tribute from a young Indian filmmaker employing an arresting pictorial language. Shot in the region where Nainsukh produced his most celebrated work, this is a meditative and meticulous recreation of the world of an artistic genius.

Climate change, the upheavals and socioeconomic inequalities caused by the the world economic powers’ control and excessive exploitation of spaces and bodies in his country, the Democratic Republic of Congo, are David Shongo’s points of departure for this film. Using the photographic archives of Hans Himmelheber (1938-39) and the hunting songs of Léon Verbeek as timeless devices and bearers of testimony, the film questions the psychoepistemology of globalization and its strategic device, technology.