Synopsis

An original screenplay by Paul Ian Johnson
Story by Paul Ian Johnson and Sascha Muller

Finalist (Drama) – 2007 Screenplay Festival
Finalist – 2008 Script PIMP Screenplay Contest
Honourable Mention – 2008 Creative World Awards Screenplay Competition

A fact-based human genocide, set during turn-of-the-century colonialism, exposing one man’s greed and barbaric abuse of power. History's greatest forgotten atrocity – King Leopold’s annexure of the Congo, the slaughter of millions of innocents, and the subsequent birth of the human rights’ movement.

The story:

2005
After witnessing brutality and tragedy, aid worker Jelome Delpy leaves war-ravaged Democratic Republic of Congo, disillusioned. She returns home to Belgium, taking a job in the family business - Delpy Industries .

Jelome is assigned to recover the company’s early history. As she comes across compelling evidence of Belgian atrocities in the Congo, she learns that Delpy Industries itself is the subject of a class action lawsuit led by ambitious lawyer Martina Jongwe, seeking reparations for colonial crimes against the Congo. Seeking to extricate her family’s name from crimes against humanity, Jelome is forced to return to Congo, digging deeper into long-buried family and corporate secrets that will force a dangerous choice between country, family and truth.

Congo, 1887
The tribal childhood of eleven-year old Anjelane - preoccupied with her father Bakari's training of eager junior warrior, Shomari, and the influence of Anglican missionary, Reverend John Harris - is shattered forever by the arrival of the first colonial agents of Belgian King Leopold II. Led by the brutal Jean-Luc Dhont, Anjelane’s village soon finds itself at the eye of the storm of unbridled violence and excess characterizing Belgian colonialism. Anjelane’s life is changed forever when, on a drunken rampage, Dhont kills her father and rapes her mother, Bahiva.

Six years later, Anjelane continues a bitter, surreptitious campaign of low-level sabotage against Dhont, now the wealthy owner of the Dhont Trading Company. When Dhont’s brother, Didier, attempts to rape Anjelane, Bahiva intervenes - stabbing him to death. Urging her mother and Reverend Harris to blame her for the killing, Anjelane flees into the forest. Discovering his brother’s body, Dhont destroys the village and everything in it, investing all resources in an effort to find and punish Anjelane. With everything lost, Anjelane finds camaraderie in the forest, linking up with the left-over warriors of various tribes, bound together in resistance to the Belgian colonizers. Distinguishing herself as a brave warrior, Anjelane finds friendship in the midst of brutality - and love in the discovery of a long-lost friend. But, pursuing a vengeful trail for the unprovoked crimes against her village and family, Anjelane knows she will ultimately have to face the tyrant who took away all she once cared about.

1897
English merchant trader Edmund Morel, reaping immense wealth off limited Congo concessions, is intrigued to discover Belgium’s number one export to its colony: rifles. Probing deeper, Morel begins to suspect the tremendous wealth yielded by Congo trade is, in fact, built on the brutal development of colonial blood industries. With the assistance of mysterious Belgian mercenary, Claude Maisel, Morel carefully pieces together an alarming picture of cruel and systematic genocide. As he attempts to bring the situation in Congo to the attention of the world, Morel will encounter deadly enemies at home and abroad. Morel, ultimately, will be forced to choose between the interests of his social class and those of black African people he will never once meet.

Through it all, as his once peaceful parish is gradually eradicated, Reverend Harris becomes an eyewitness to genocide. Befriending Sophie, the widow of Dhont’s brother, Harris also learns the dark secret at the heart of a powerful corporate dynasty - an inconvenient truth that will resound through generations, linking all three stories into a complete picture of colonial Africa’s darkest period.

It will also, however, enable Jelome, Morel and Anjelane to finally confront lies with truth; darkness with hope - and, ultimately, overcome evil through the active, inspiring exercise of individual conscience and force of will.

BlueCat Screenplay Report – Script Coverage:

The opening is shocking with the bucket of severed hands. Love the flies! Excellent next scene as we meet Jelome and witness her reaction to the white colonialist statue. The transition from her guttural scream in the present to the screams of the past in the jungle is scary and the perfect transition.

“In the Garden of the King” is an excellent title!  I want to run screaming from this garden. Usually gardens are beautiful. I love the play on this!

The script has a hard message to witness - an important message. There are some truly great lines: KING LEOPOLD II “It would be an act of utmost, selfless benevolence... And Europe's most charitable crusade,” THOMAS “The qualities making your brother a good businessman sometimes make him less impressive as a human being,” JELOME “Everything about my life until now has yielded only suffering and death. All I want - is to come home.” Each time we meet a character you need to stay with them for a bit to see if they are really bad, horribly bad, or bad out of necessity, or time and place in history. This script is not for the weak!

The scenes with Shomari, Anjelane and Bakari shine. It’s cool to see Anjelane with her stick dig into the ground her attack strategy. A brave character.
On page 37 when Dhont says, “These people have not understood the value of our friendship. This renegade they worship has spat on us. Perhaps, we owe it to them... (Spins barrel, slams it in) To be clearer in our disappointment,” I am chilled to the bone. This script makes you want to never have anything happen like this ever again, and yet it happens historically over and over. How can this be? 

Father Bomba is a force as he guards his church. He is a great character. The cowboy, the Belgian, both very scary guys. I love watching Jelome go after justice. “The Butcher of the Congo, Dhont!" Wow! A whole tribe fingers the devil. It is spine-chilling when Jelome sits down and talks with the elders about the crimes.

In the end with Anjelane using the “want to talk” line as she shoots Dhont is greatly satisfying. Dhont’s hand chopped off, I have to say “yes!” The truth coming out with Jelome’s litany of where the family money comes from and who is who in the family lineage is fantastic! A truly excellent ending!

This script is visually very hard to "watch", without turning away. Perhaps a little less of the blood, horror, and genocide might go an equally long way. The script runs at 137 pages and it’s important to get the story out and to do this you may need to sacrifice some scenes of death that might be repetitive.
This is a difficult, sad story to get through. It heightens an ugly truth and really socks it to the audience.

Well done.