LE BIBLE NOIR

Le Bible Noir is a short film by Franziska Brodhun, conceived during a journey through Congo together with the artist L’Exodus. There, Brodhun encountered a book on Luba mythology and the story of Maweja a Nangila — a creator deity whose memory fades from human consciousness. This discovery became the foundation for an artistic and technological inquiry: how myth can mirror humanity’s descent into ecological and digital dystopia, and how remembrance might guide us toward renewal. The film reimagines Maweja’s myth for the present: the god forgotten and trapped in a cobalt mine — a site of modern slavery and child labor that sustains the global demand for devices and artificial intelligence. From this darkness, a child frees Maweja, opening a vision of co-creation between humans, earth, and technology. Parallel to the narrative, Brodhun’s research investigates the potential and bias of AI image generation. By consciously working with the distortions, racial misreadings, and uncanny valley effects produced by these systems, she questions authorship, representation, and the aesthetics of technological power. As a white European woman engaging with Afrofuturist thought, Brodhun approaches the subject with critical awareness — not to speak for, but to stand beside. Le Bible Noir emerges as both film and research: a post-futurist reflection on extraction, memory, and the possibility of harmony between humanity, nature, and machine.