and tells Lumumba that Kasavubu wanted him arrested, but has elected to place him under house arrest instead, leading Lumumba to suspect that Mobutu is working with a foreign power. Later, Mobutu announces that the army has seized power, and claims to have arrested both Lumumba and Kasavubu. While plotting his escape to Stanleyville, Lumumba learns that his infant daughter has died in Switzerland. While Lumumba and his partisans cross the river towards Stanleyville, soldiers arrive and accost Lumumba's family and he returns to face them, where he is arrested. At Mobutu's military encampment, he and others vote to kill Lumumba, with Kasavubu reluctantly casting his vote. He, Mpolo, and Okito, are taken to Katanga where they are brutally beaten, with Munongo joining in. The ending of the film intersperses Mobutu, now Mobutu Sese Seko, publicly remembering Lumumba, with shots of the men's executions in a dark woods. Cast Eriq Ebouaney as Patrice Lumumba Alex Descas as Joseph-Desiré Mobutu (Mobutu Sese Seko) Théophile Sowié as Maurice Mpolo Maka Kotto as Joseph Kasa-Vubu Dieudonné Kabongo as Godefroid Munongo Pascal N'Zonzi as Moïse Tshombe Olivier Bony as King Baudouin of the Belgians André Debaar as Walter J. Ganshof Van der Meersch Cheik Doukouré as Joseph Okito Mata Gabin as Helene Bijou Makena Diop as Thomas Kanza Mariam Kaba as Pauline Lumumba Rudi Delhem as General Émile Janssens Den Thatcher as Frank Carlucci Release The film premiered at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival on 14 May 2000, and it was shown at various film festivals as well as having commercial releases in Belgium, France, Switzerland, the United States and Canada. The film grossed $684,000 in the US. It also aired on HBO. Disputed scene The film generated some controversy in 2002, when Frank Carlucci, a former American government official and protege of Donald Rumsfeld, persuaded HBO to delete a reference to him during the airing of the film. The scene in question involves a group of Belgian and Congolese officials deciding whether to kill Lumumba. Carlucci is asked for input, and he mumbles that the US government does not involve itself in the internal affairs of other countries. At the time, Carlucci was the second secretary of the US Embassy in Congo. He denies playing any role in the death of Lumumba: "The scene is tendentious, false, libelous; it never happened and it is a cheap shot." According to one source, the scene