“Heroes in the Congo” focuses on the example of dedication of the nun Presentación López in a dangerous territory

On Tuesday afternoon, 25 October, the documentary Héroes en el Congo, by Eduardo Margareto, was presented, a work selected in the Cine de Castilla y León section of the 67th edition of Seminci. The event was attended by the director, the producer, Rafael Monje and Presentación López, one of the protagonists of the documentary. In addition, Tomás Martínez, president of the project, and Francisco Martínez, from Kivu Jambo, also participated.

Heroes in the Congo takes a journey with the protagonists through a very dangerous territory in the east of the Congo. Mama Maria is an inspiration for all of them. She is Sister Presentación López from Burgos, a nun of the Order of Saint Joseph of Gerona, who carried out her humanitarian work in Rubare, until she lost her legs in October 2008 during a bombardment by Tutsi rebels of the house where she lived with other nuns.

Sister Presentación decided to continue working to improve the living conditions of those people and from this the NGO Rubare Project was born. With Mama Maria as a reference, the film describes all the improvement projects for the people of the Congo, which the protagonists of the documentary carry out.

According to the director himself, “both filming and editing were crazy”. He wanted to highlight the difficulty in obtaining the necessary permits to be able to access specific areas and the impossibility of making forecasts due to the political situation in the country. “We couldn’t say where we were going to be for security reasons”, he declared.