The film opens with a stark montage of Lumumba and his allies Joseph Okito and Maurice Mpolo being driven to their executions, followed by a brutal sequence where their bodies are exhumed, dismembered, and burned on the orders of Mobutu Sese Seko. The viewpoint then flips back to the late 1950s, centering on a heated debate in which Lumumba squares off with Moïse Tshombe and Godefroid Munongo, rival leaders from the pro-Western CONAKAT party. His bold Pan-Africanist ideals spark fury in Tshombe and Munongo, setting the stage for a long, turbulent struggle for power and independence.
The story then returns to Lumumba's day-to-day life, beginning with his job as a beer salesman in Léopoldville. He uses his street presence and charisma to spread his political message, and it’s during one of these gatherings that he encounters Joseph Mobutu for the first time. News arrives that Baudouin of Belgium has grown more favorable toward independence, but the moment is cut short when Force Publique soldiers disperse the crowd—Lumumba is arrested, beaten by Belgian guards, and ultimately sent to Brussels to negotiate Congo’s path to freedom.
In Brussels, Lumumba meets Joseph Kasa-Vubu, a fellow independence-minded politician from ABAKO who seeks a pragmatic deal with the Belgians. Frustrated by Belgium’s refusal to recognize the legitimacy of the Mouvement National Congolais despite electoral success, Lumumba backs Kasavubu for president, and Kasavubu appoints Lumumba as prime minister. The coalition formation is rocky from the start: Tshombe and Munongo feel sidelined and threaten the government, foreshadowing future strain within the new leadership.
On the eve of formal independence, Lumumba delivers a speech that adopts a more combative tone than Kasavubu’s, underscoring the oppression Congo endured under Belgian rule. Back in the Congo, the cabinet debates removing Émile Janssens, who resists African officers. A troubling incident involving a Walloon couple leads the Belgian ambassador to press Lumumba with veiled threats about involving the United Nations and NATO, a confrontation that intensifies Lumumba’s resolve to challenge Belgian interference and the lingering colonial order. Lumumba ultimately dismisses Janssens and expels the ambassador.
During a trip to Katanga, Munongo refuses to permit the government’s plane to land, signaling Katanga’s secession as the State of Katanga. After clashes with Belgian troops at Ndjili, Lumumba drives to quell the separatists, and evidence surfaces that Mobutu’s forces have massacred civilians in the fighting, forcing Lumumba to rethink his relationship with Mobutu and his willingness to rely on American backing. He confronts Kasavubu once more, confessing distrust of foreign influence and a belief that the Soviet Union may be the only reliable ally. A later scene shows the American ambassador pledging support to Mobutu if he helps remove Lumumba, compounding the political gridlock that follows Kasavubu’s dismissal of Lumumba over alleged communist sympathies and responsiblity for the South Kasai massacres.
Amid personal hardship, Lumumba learns that his infant daughter must be sent to Switzerland for medical care, a tragedy that compounds the political peril surrounding him. Mobutu’s arrival signals a shift toward arrest, and Kasavubu leaves Lumumba under house arrest rather than an outright arrest—an ominous hint that foreign powers may already be at play. Soon afterward, Mobutu proclaims that the army has seized power, and Lumumba, along with Mpolo and Okito, is pursued as the regime consolidates its control.
As Lumumba plots an escape to Stanleyville, he learns that his infant daughter has died in Switzerland. While attempting to flee with his partisans, Lumumba’s family is confronted by soldiers along the riverbank, forcing him to return and face the crackdown. At a military encampment, Lumumba, Mpolo, and Okito are sentenced to death by a council that includes Kasavubu, who reluctantly endorses the killing. They are transported to Katanga, where they are brutally beaten in the final hours, with Munongo among the assailants.
The film closes by juxtaposing Mobutu Sese Seko’s public memory of Lumumba with stark, shadowed footage of the executions in the dark woods, creating a somber meditation on the human cost of Congo’s drive for independence and the brutal political forces that shaped its fate.
