Beyond Reality and Fiction: William Demby’s Congo vivo

Abstract

Set during the height of the Congolese Civil War (1960-1965), Congo vivo (Giuseppe Bennati, 1962), narrates the affair between an Italian journalist, Roberto (Gabriele Ferzetti) and Annette (Jean Seberg), the wife of a Belgian diplomat. The film was co-written by William Demby (1922-2013), a novelist, journalist, translator, and screenwriter, who like many African American soldiers who arrived in Italy during World War II as part of the U.S. Allied Forces, remained in the country for the better part of forty years. Written during Demby's period of intermittent expatriatism between the United States and Italy, and in the same period as his signature novel, The Catacombs (1965), I argue Congo vivo, a hybrid film with elements of documentary, ethnography, and narrative fiction, is situated within a transnational and transmedia framework and offers another perspective on Italian Third Worldism. I also argue that Congo vivo anticipates the filone films set within former colonial territories that index not only the decline of the Italian film industry and the rise of television, but also an emergent postcolonial condition.