TIFF 2025: The Displacement of Reality in Damien Hauser’s “Memories of Princess Mumbi”

Damien Hauser’s Memories of Princess Mumbi is one of the African films screening at the Centrepiece and TIFF Next Wave Selects section of the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival. Directed by the Swiss-Kenyan filmmaker, Hauser’s film is a deep reflection on the love for cinema and filmmaking in an AI-driven world, and conversation on war and depression and loss. Set in the fictional and futuristic African country of Umata in 2093, the film, at its core, is about the love triangle between Kuve, a filmmaker(Abraham Joseph), Mumbi, an actor(Shandra Apondi) and Prince, a prince(Samson Waithaka). The film follows their jazz-like journey and conversations in post-war Umata. Adult residents are, in a documentary-esque tone, asked to contemplate on the psychological scars the war left and children are asked if they would willingly go to war as a patriotic duty. Though playful and serious, these moments provide the varying generational responses to war. This hard-to-describe film which blends sci-fi and genres critiques AI and its users’ ability to displace reality and truth. 

In its  free-flowing manner, Hauser’s Memories of Princess Mumbi moves through a range of themes. It begins with the tender and personal story of a blooming relationship between Kuve and Mumbi, then shifts into the psychological and fraught recalling of war trauma. The narrative also offers an historical and political critique of African filmmakers’ continued tendency to cater to Western and the foreign gaze when telling African stories. Finally, it touches on contemporary reflections on the ethical use of AI. In discussing these subjects, Hauser’s hand-held camera captures a raw and unfiltered thinking of Kuve, Mumbi and other characters. Their improvised conversations carry a distinct intellectual presence and depth. In a scene, Mumbi critiques Kuve, who represents African filmmakers and their predilection for telling stories about poverty and trauma when Umata’s residents, representing Africans, have already stated their preference for lighter and fun-filled films. It raises the question of artistic responsibility, and conformity of African filmmakers so they can be accepted into White spaces, and the erasure of lighthearted African stories. 

This critique of the Western film festival gaze is important and timely when contextualizing the presence of African films at the world’s top festivals: TIFF, Sundance Film Festival, Berlin Film Festival, Venice Film Festival, Cannes Film Festival and others. It challenges the capitalist-and-neocolonial-driven thinking of “what the world wants to see”. The African cinema programming featured at these film festivals hints that the world is interested in narratives centering African pain, suffering and trauma. And for the longest, African films at international festivals have pandered to this. But, with Memories of Princess Mumbi, Hauser is asking: what do Africans really want to see? Where, as Oris Aigbokhaevbolo asked, is African joy at Cannes or African humour at Sundance? In a contemplative but blunt tone, the film critiques these stereotypical images and the globally-accepted undertone that African stories must prove its Africaness by wearing the familiar garment of poverty, disease and politics. To access grants, African filmmakers are compelled to take on political and agitational tones in telling personal and tender stories. As Mutinga Wa Nkunda, a Rwandan director emphasized, this is a conscious neo-colonial practice and entrapment. These are larger political and historical conversations that Hauser’s film inspires. 

Hauser’s film is reminiscent of Faiza Ahmand Khan’s Supermen of Malengaon in its capturing of the love for cinema and filmmaking. Khan’s Supermen of Malengaon follows the story of a group of zero-budget filmmakers wanting to make films. The crew members led by Nasir Shaikh, an amateur filmmaker from the town of Malegaon are unfazed by the physical and technical challenges they encountered. In this way, Hauser’s film is similar in its truthful and vulnerable display of the challenges associated with filmmaking, the ethics of documentary filmmaking and filmmaker-subject relationships, as well as a critique of AI-driven filmmaking. It emphasizes that AI can’t carry that distinct and flawed human identity and style in acting, directions and editing. 

The film is also about memory and loss. Made in memory of his deceased brother, Hauser’s film dwells n the crippling trauma of love and loss and depression and happiness. Its disarming vulnerability makes it an enjoyable and emotional watch. The carefree filmmaking style gives it the air of watching your favorite friends moving through familiar streets with a camera. This approach allows the heavy, political and historical conversations the film contends with hits better.