Except the past

Sanaz Azari Belgium 2025 69 min.

How do you give a museum that was built more than a century ago as part of colonial propaganda a new purpose? After a five-year renovation, the Africa Museum in Brussels has reopened its doors with new exhibition formats. Inside, visitors exchange ideas with their guides and with each other. Different perspectives on a place where, despite the new narrative, the past does not seem to fully disappear.

How should we confront our colonial past? What constitutes a “right” way to portray historical atrocities? Or to expose propaganda? Should images be removed, or contextualized and left in place? During guided tours at the renovated Africa Museum, guides pause at iconic objects and engage in dialogue with visitors. A film filled with compelling, illuminating, and necessary reflections, because the past is never entirely over.