| Brief Description: | Peter Bate's controversial documentary describes how King Leopold II of Belgium turned the Congo into his private colony between 1885 and 1908. Under Leopold's control, the Congo became a gulag labor camp of shocking brutality, with families held hostage, workers starved to death, and children's hands chopped off as punishment for late deliveries. While the Belgian government has denounced Bate's film as a "tendentious diatribe", it is widely agreed today that the first Human Rights movement was spurred by what happened in the African nation. "[A] stunning indictment" (Variety). |
