Join award-winning director, producer and screenwriter, Djo Munga, and Hoover Senior Fellow H.R. McMaster as they discuss Munga’s films depicting life in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Central African regional challenges, and opportunities for unleashing the potential of this resource rich country in service of its long-suffering population. Having received widespread acclaim for his work, Munga reflects on how the arts, including film, drama and literature can help us understand complex challenges facing the world from a political, economic and social perspective, how he uses film to understand the root causes of conflict in the DRC, why resilience is so important to the Congo, and what he hopes to portray through his future projects.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Djo Tunda Wa Munga is an award-winning director, producer, and screenwriter. Munga was born in the DRC’s capital, Kinshasa. He pursued fine arts while attending boarding school in Belgium, and a cinema workshop inspired him to attend the National Film School of Belgium, INSAS. Munga then returned to the Congo and established the first film and television production company in the DRC, Suka! Productions, as well as its first film and television school. His debut film VIVA RIVA! received widespread acclaim. Munga has produced documentary and historical films for the World Bank, BBC, and numerous international development agencies.

H.R. McMaster is the Fouad and Michelle Ajami Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He is also the Bernard and Susan Liautaud Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute and lecturer at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business. He was the 25th assistant to the president for National Security Affairs. Upon graduation from the United States Military Academy in 1984, McMaster served as a commissioned officer in the United States Army for thirty-four years before retiring as a Lieutenant General in June 2018.

Battlegrounds w/ H.R. McMaster: DRC: Film, the Human Condition, and Complex Dynamics