Featuring witches, princess pink-clad street gangs and professional mourners, Baloji Tshiani’s debut feature film Augure finds its UK and US theatrical release this month having received universal acclaim on the film festival circuit. Accompanying the film is an epic four-album soundtrack featuring Jamila Woods, Sampa the Great, serpentwithfeet and Bongeziwe Mabandla, and the short film, Augure: Infinite Trolling which serves as a poignant comment on our relationship with creative content in the age of social media. And soon landing in London, the acclaimed Congolese-Belgian trans-disciplinary artist is to host a special evening of music and conversation at the ICA on 1 May in partnership with Nataal and Nowness. [BUY TICKETS TO BAJOLI: OMEN LIVE HERE]

Augure is a tale of spirituality, tradition, grief and belonging through the intertwined lives of four complex characters: Mama Mujila (Yves-Marina Gnahoua), her son Koffi (Marc Zinga), daughter Tshala (Eliane Umuhire), and kid gangster Paco (Marcel Otete Kabeya), all of whom are accused of witchcraft. Baloji compares an augure (meaning omen) to déjà vu, saying “All the characters have some augure, which can be seen as something mystical and also natural.” The foreboding mood is set when Koffi returns home to DRC from Belgium with his pregnant white fiancée Alice (Lucie Debay), where he faces family strife, sorcery and “the phantasmagoria of Africa” through the mischievous lens of magical realism.

The film won the New Voice Prize in the Un Certain Regard section of the 2023 Cannes Film Festival and was Belgium's 2024 Oscar submission for Best International Feature film. These and many other accolades feel extra sweet given that the director and his team struggled with years of rejection from multiple institutions while striving to bring Augure to fruition. Undeterred, in 2021 he finally secured support from Belgian and Dutch funders to tell his story the way it needed to be told. “They said, ‘Let’s do it, no matter what,” he recalls. The budget remained very small but his hands-on approach bore fruits for this accomplished debut that builds on his past experience of making increasingly ambitious videos and shorts, among them 2019’s Zombies and 2020’s Kaniama Show.

“I'm 100% convinced that the film industry is not for people like us,” the director says, reflecting on the tribulations he has faced. For example, at an early stage of the script, he felt forced to change Alice’s ethnicity from Belgian to Moroccan. “We got the money because nobody asks questions about Salma as an Arabic woman. The people in commissions didn’t have to identify themselves with Alice anymore.” By the time the film was released in France, Alice had been readopted and some audiences questioned the absence of her perspective despite the film’s intentional focus on its Black African characters. "Can you imagine, we just want to listen to the vision of the one white person and the 100 Black people don't exist anymore," he reflects.

Central to the film is the dissection of labels and identities associated with the African occult. Sent to Europe and labelled ‘zabolo’ (meaning ‘mark of the devil’) because of his prominent birthmark, Koffi is estranged from his family. Similarly, Baloji was born in Lubumbashi and raised in Liege, separated from his mother. His name originally meant ‘man of science’ in Swahili yet due to Christian influence became interpreted as ‘sorcerer’. But this is no autobiography. “The mistake is to believe that the story of Koffi is my narrative train. The movie is not about somebody going back to Congo after a few years. Koffi is the character that helps you to enter the story but he's not the main character.”

That honour goes to the incredible Ivorian Coast actress Yves-Marina Gnahoua. “She really touched my heart,” he says of this casting choice. Her stern portrayal of Mujilia is filled with sharp stares and an even sharper tongue to create the weighty presence of a strong matriarch. “I wanted to present the mother with a lot of layers. She’s very proud and she’s not trying to make things work the family.” This impenetrable character eventually reveals the deeper reality of the family’s dynamics. Their discordance unfolds within an imaginative world at the intersection of modernity and tradition. Set over Catholic celebrations of Easter weekend yet delving into African belief systems, we’re soon taken into fantastical realms. We hear languages that don’t exist. We follow the pink boys into bacchanalian scenes that mix up New Orleans’ Mardi Gras with the Gilles of Belgium’ Carnival of Binche. Former DRC president Mobutu Sese Seko is referenced in the leopard print uniform worn by the rival gang of Paco and the Goonz. And by drawing parallels between European folklore, such as Hansel and Gretel, with references to animism, Baloji aims to underscore the shared roots and intrinsic patriarchy of cultural practices across continents.

Augure is also a criticism of the double standards of white European feminism and those who are more likely to enjoy a level of comfort, access to knowledge and empowerment, often because other women, particularly Black women, are shouldering the responsibility of advocacy and activism on their behalf. “Let's start by acknowledging that we are sitting on privilege,” he councils. The director has taken to style himself in dresses to stand in solidarity with the LGBTQI+ community, and is especially passionate about intersectional feminism as a loving father to a teenage daughter. Her name is shown in the bank advertisements at the beginning of the film. “It's our responsibility as parents to love our kids, to take care of them and to support them. It's important that we break certain cycles. We don't have to duplicate the way our parents raised us. It's a lie and we protect ourselves by pretending that it's a part of our heritage.”

A quality the film shares with Baloji’s previous projects is its outstanding aesthetics, from the dramatic fashions (regular collaborators include Damselfrau, Cafe Costume, Bandon Wen and Elke Hoste) to the otherworldly accompanying photography created in cahoots with Kristin-Lee Moolman. However, it’s never a case of style over substance. “Augure is about dealing with forgiveness and empathy; reconciliation with yourself and with your family. It's not an art installation,” he asserts. This artist’s vivid eye for creative direction is recognised in Augurism, the current show at MoMu Gallery at the Fashion Museum of Antwerp. The site-specific exhibition digs into his archives of props, costumes and images to reveal his many-tentacled take on cultural identity.

Which brings us to his latest creation, Augure: Infinite Trolling. Complimenting the feature and album soundtrack, the short film toys with how social media shrinks our attention spans and desensitises us to the content we encounter. By weaving through a series of dizzying vignettes, there's a disquieting sense of the surreal in its art of assemblage. One of his original inspirations was Michaela Coel’s 2021 Emmy award speech, during which she said: “Write the tale that scares you, that makes you feel uncertain, that isn’t comfortable. I dare you.” Unswervingly, Baloji has always done just that.

BALOJI: OMEN LIVE is on 1 May 2024 at ICA London in partnership with NATAAL and NOWNESS and supported by Not Just Any.

The evening features a presentation by mask artist Damselfrau followed by a talk between Baloji and ICA talks and research curator Susanna Davies-Crook, and a screening of the new short film Infinite Trolling. Special performances come from poet JJ Bola and Jamila Woods plus a DJ set by Ehua.

Discover more and buy tickets here.

COMPETITION: To win one of three pairs of tickets to Baloji: Omen Live, email [info@nataal.com] with ‘AUGURE’ in the subject and your full name by Monday 29 April.