WHEN WE WERE KINGS

"I live in America but Africa is the home of the black man. I was a slave 400 years ago and now I’m going home to fight among my brothers. We gonna rumble in the jungle."

1974 was the year of the legendary heavyweight-championship fight between a then 32-year old Muhammad Ali and the reigning champion George Foreman, ten years his junior, in Kinshasa, Zaire. Infamous boxing promoter Don King set up the match by promising both fighters a prize of five million dollars - win or lose. He got Zaire’s dictator Mobutu, "the King of Zaire", to fund the fight. A spectacular music show featuring Afro-American stars like James Brown, B.B. King and The Pointer Sisters is organised to accompany the fight. But the fight has to be postponed six weeks due to Foreman’s injury. Ali takes on a highly publicised journey into the Zairian countryside, exhorting his African fans to chant "Ali, Bomaye!" (Ali, kill him!), fostering a new Black self-awareness in US-America.

"There was a time when you'd call a black person "African", you'd better be ready to fight'" notes Spike Lee in the film. Muhammad Ali’s arrival in Zaire changed that.

"Mr. Gast skilfully blends photographs, celebrity interviews with Norman Mailer and others, and colourful forays into the Zairian countryside, where Ali fostered black brotherhood and became a huge favourite, in a film that gazes well beyond the ring and seeks engagement with history". Lawrence Van Gelder, The New York Times

"On a deeper level - and this is where When We Were Kings exceeds its expectations and becomes a great film - Gast examines African American pride. He records a time when Ali, loud and "pretty", became a worldwide symbol of black self-determination and gave his brothers a bolder, stronger image of themselves than they'd ever known." Edward Guthmann, San Fransisco Chronicle

"It took director-producer Leon Gast 22 years to edit and finance When We Were Kings … But the lag time has only deepened the impact of this thrilling documentary: All sad thoughts of Ali as a wounded warrior fall away in the glow of seeing the champ at his best." Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly

Awards: Special Recognition Sundance 1996, Oscar 1997, NSFC Award 1997, BFCA Award 1997

See Mobutu, Roi de Zaire at BEST.DOKS 2006 and Congo River in the competition 2006

(Foto: Tele 5 Munich)