“If I show my old prosthetic, they will surely see how bad it is?” The woman holds up her worn out leg prosthetic. Twenty years after the Six-Day War, she, together with other victims, travels across the Congo River towards the capital, Kinshasa, to demand the promised recognition and compensation. In 2000, during the Second Congo War, the Rwandan and Ugandan forces fought it out on Congolese soil, in Kisangani, but Hamadi directs his camera towards the conflict happening present-day. And in this present-day, the victims are not sympathized with, to put it mildly. Not by the people in their neighbourhood, not by the passengers on the boat on the Congo River, and not by the government. In the theatre, they regained their voices to put their pain into words. And they want to let these words reverberate in Parliament and in the United Nations, right until they will silently carry a banner by the rainy streets. Years of anger, powerlessness and pain do not just wash away. But slowly a question creeps up: what do this journey and the heart-wrenching plea of the victims achieve? Downstream to Kinshasa shows their harrowing tale and their stubborn determination in a poignant and smart way.
