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Being Ourselves for You: There’s no Business like Ethnological Show Business 

 
 
JORIS POSTEMA (Director), 2021, Stop Filming Us, 95 minutes.  
Link: https://www.videoproject.org/stop-filming-us.html  
 
Joris Postma’s “Stop Filming Us,” highlights two key media: film making and photography in 
Goma, a city in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. As a film maker he wants to show the 
positive side of Goma, “despite the chaos,” going back to Goma after 10 years and wanting to 
show “my western image of “hell on earth,’ [which] clashed with Congolese reality.” The key 
question he asks both himself and the viewer is, “Can I, as a western film maker, portray this 
world?” Photography and film are key methods in any anthropologist’s tool kit when conducting 
fieldwork, and one of the key questions many anthropologists ask themselves at some point is, can 
they really understand the society they are studying through these mediums? 
 
One of the overarching themes in this film is about who should tell which stories – and who has 
agency. Are local film makers the only ones who can tell stories about Goma or can a foreigner 
like Postma also tell a story, and ultimately, who controls that narrative? This question comes up 
several times during the film, and Postma asks his crew about whether he is being “neo-colonial,” 
and that question embeds a host of others, like who decides what to film, what to edit, what story 
to tell. However, for all Postma’s discomfort about his position as a film maker, telling stories 
which his film crew feel they are able to tell themselves, in the final film credits there is only one 
named director – and it is Postma. 
 
Postma’s local film crew postulate the idea that the filmmaker may be part of the problem with his 
‘white savior complex,’ and he is visibly uncomfortable during this discussion. TD Jack gives an 
example of how this works – Postma offers the crew some biscuits, asking if they want one. When 
approached by some street children, he doesn’t ask them if they want any, but just hands them out 
to them. A kind gesture perhaps, but one which robs the children of agency, and the opportunity 
to choose. 
 
Then there is the story of Betty, a young, Congolese film maker which is juxtaposed to that of 
Postma. Betty has completed the first part of a film and is searching for funding to complete the 
second part. She is part of Yole’ Africa, a cultural collective aimed at empowering the youth. The 
centre has a large mural of Patrice Lumumba on the side. Yole’ Africa is an exhibition space where 
people can debate contemporary issues, and one of the debates touches on representation, and the 
fact that “neo-colonialism is [still] a reality [in the Congo], not a concept”: 

 



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Our perception of ourselves is still influenced by the trauma of colonialism, always 
being represented by others, and we never take the time to represent ourselves and 
decide which myths we believe and which myths are false. 

 
Betty goes to the Institut Français to discuss funding to complete her film, and the director of the 
institute informs her that if she needs a laptop there is one at the institute that she can use. He then 
goes on to explain that the Institute exists for “collaborative” projects. The viewer never finds out 
if Betty does get the funding to complete her film, but the conversation between Betty and the 
institute director seems to suggest that the film will be completed as a “collaborative” project, i.e., 
with the involvement of other parties. 
  
There are many layers to this film, and another theme which emerges around voice and agency, 
begging the question as to who controls the image being portrayed, is seen at the start of the film. 
A local photographer (Mugabo Baritegera) is called out by the people he is photographing: 
“You are earning money with our photos. Why are you taking our pictures?”  
 
Many local people are not happy having their photograph taken, and want to know what it’s going 
to be used for. Bartitegera says that he’s an artist, but that holds little water with an incognito 
intelligence officer who asks him to stop. Bartitegera argues that this is liberty of expression and 
as a citizen it is his right to take those pictures. He wants his photos to show how people live, and 
what they do – not just conflict and poverty: 

 
When I wanted to recognize myself in images on the internet or wherever, all I saw 
was this negativity. So, I want to take pictures I can identify with, and that others 
can recognize themselves in. 

 
In sharp contrast to this is Tor Ley, a local photographer employed by UNHCR to take photographs 
of the local people. They have a contract, and in it the terms of what and how Ley should 
photograph her subjects is clear: she cannot deviate from that. Therefore, the photos that she takes 
creates an image in the West of a people in permanent misery. In her seminal work “Torture and 
the Ethics of Photography” (2007), Judith Butler provides an analysis of which lives are deemed 
worthy and what merits definition as a life in the first place. She argues that we do not need a 
caption, or a narrative, attached to a photo to understand the context and background that is being 
explicitly formulated and renewed through the frame. It is not just a blank visual image, and in 
Goma, these images provide a deeper insight into the inequality of the power dynamics which 
govern the relationships between local Congolese and the 250 NGOs in Goma today. Bernth 
Lindfors (1999) defines ethnological show business as the displaying of foreign peoples for 
commercial and/or educational purposes, noting that this trope has a very long history in Europe. 
The display of Othered bodies, mainly indigenous people, for entertainment purposes was 
especially popular during the World’s Fairs during the nineteenth century. Photography and film 
follow along the same continuum, and two hundred years later, some things have changed, but not 
a lot.  
 
This is an important film, and prior to embarking on fieldwork, this should be compulsory viewing 
for anthropology students. In his essay, “African’s Belgium” (2001), Johannes Fabian asks if the 
gaze between Belgium and the Congo can be reversed, and the imperial gaze inverted. Postma’s 



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film shows that the Western ‘gaze’ is being contested by local photographers and film makers such 
as Bartitegera, Ley and Betty – but their progress is stilted by lack of funding and control over 
their narrative. 
 
Works Cited: 
 
Judith Butler. 2007. “Torture and the ethics of photography,” Environment and Planning D: 
Society and Space (25) pp. 951-966. Great Britain. 
 
Bernth Lindfors. 1999. Africans on Stages: Studies in ethnological show business. Indiana 
University Press. 
 
Johannes Fabian. 2001. Anthropology with attitude. Stanford University Press. 
 
Natalia Shunmugan holds a PhD in Social and Cultural Anthropology from the University of 
Oxford. Besides working in industry, she has worked for the World Health Organization in 
Geneva, focusing on regulatory policy. There she was part of the WHO strategy team looking to 
develop and implement, regulatory pathways for licensing vaccines in developing countries. She 
currently heads up Global Regulatory Intelligence and Policy here at Ultragenyx Pharmaceutical. 
She is also fortunate to wear her anthropology hat at the Richmond Museum for History and 
Culture, where she is assisting the museum in designing an exhibit on Women’s Progress. That 
work focuses on subaltern voices, and recovering Native American and African-American 
narratives which have been obfuscated and hidden. 
 
 

 

 

© Natalia Shunmugan 2022  


