La rançon d’une alliance

For a first feature, Kamba chose to adapt an historic novel, La légende de Mfoumou Ma Mazono by Jean Malonga, a writer who offered a more social view of the problem of national unity which was strong in Congolese minds at that time. The subject is a fratricidal war between two tribes in the pre-colonial period: the Tsembo and the Tsoundi. Their alliance is guaranteed by the marriage of the son and daughter of the tribes’ respective rulers, but the infidelity of the wife, Hakoula, who gives herself to a slave, sparks off a war of terrible bloodshed. Hakoula’s son will re-establish peace in the country and free all the slaves, but in the process, the old traditions are destroyed and a modern society of progress and individual freedom is coming into being. For the first time in African cinema, the taboo subject of slavery amongst Africans in the pre-colonial period is dealt with.