Photographer: Van Overschelde, Antoon = R(évérend) P(ère) Van Overschelde (1895-1967).
Title: untitled (Jeune Intore).
Date: 1945-1955.
Country: Rwanda.
Medium: unmounted gelatin silver print.
Size: 23,9 x 17,9 cm.
Condition: very good.
Reference: AVOV1113/1.
Provenance: Belgian vintage photography dealer.
Extra: typed note with identification in French on verso.
Congopresse: 31.407/8.
A young Intore performing a dance for the Mwâmi (king) of Rwanda. The Intore were pages from the finest families of the Tutsi nobility, who were maintained at the king’s court. They underwent rigorous training that made them elite dancers. When they reached the required age, they left the court to begin their careers as feudal lords.
 
Antoon Van Oeverschelde was a White Father. The White Fathers arrived in Congo in 1880 and, together with the Scheutists who arrived in 1888, took the lead in Catholic missionary work in Leopold II’s Congo Free State. These two strict missionary congregations would later, initially reluctantly, be followed by older Belgian orders such as the Jesuits (1893), the Norbertines (1898), the Benedictines (1910), and the Dominicans (1911).
In 1924, the White Fathers were among the first to use films in their missionary propaganda. In 1948, as part of the Centre Congolais d’Action Catholique Cinématographique, the congregation began producing its own films for the Belgian home audience and educational films for the Congolese public. The production house was called Africa-Films, and the key contributors were Fathers Piet Verstegen (scripts), Roger De Vloo (1916–1993, direction), and Antoon Van Overschelde (1895–1967, production and distribution).
The collection, protected under the Top Piece Decree, contains 80 film titles, comprising 110 films, as some were made in multiple languages: French and Dutch, and occasionally also in Swahili and Lingala.