Llueve sobre Babel is playing in theaters in Colombia! A Cali bar that's the inferno. As per Instagram: "Gala is building a queer magical realism cinematic universe. Two more films in development: Moonchild and Ascension. This is what Colombian cinema looks like when it stops asking for permission."
I've published books, and my next one will be Attis & Aleph: Poems of the Daimonic. It's about a man in 1930s New York who was fascinated with what the idea of eunuchs meant to him. He couldn't finish writing his book, but I finished writing this one. It's advice to overthinkers. It talks about how to see your project in a new way and take the paths that will bring happiness and completion. I need your pledge on Attis & Aleph so that I can reach minimum funding and this book can happen!
It's part of the Book Bazaar 2026, a crowdfunding event on BackerKit, Oct 29–Nov 19.
Baloji's first feature film, “Omen” (“Augure”), debuted at Cannes and will be in UK cinemas on April 26. (Use UniFrance to find more places to view it.)
It is, as he explains, "prohibited, censored in certain African countries, because they consider that we’re promoting LGBT culture and polyamorous sexualities. So the movie’s censored in Cameroon, in Uganda, Ghana – which is quite surprising."
CNN says:
"It begins with Koffi, the ostracized son of a Congolese family, who returns to the DRC from Belgium with his pregnant White fiancé. He wants to honor tradition and pay a dowry, but he’s met with hostility; his father won’t meet him, his mother is scornful, and his sisters turn sour when there’s an accident and he’s accused of sorcery.
Interweaving the stories of four people touched by sorcery, Baloji conjures an absurd fable that marries Central African animism and Catholicism with Disney and European folklore. It’s avant-garde filmmaking that prizes image above all, though it’s fizzing with ideas."
Baloji says:
"Koffi is not a victim. He’s on the side of the privileged, because he has something that no one else has in the DRC: a passport. He can leave whenever he wants. Koffi is a McGuffin, he’s an entry point. So you think we’re going to talk about something that is very present in literature for the last 200 years? Going back home and feeling disconnected? Then after 20 minutes we change the point of view. The main character is his mum, because she’s the one that goes through a big change in the narrative."
The film did not receive funding from France. Baloji tells CNN:
"...the moment you have a French, White character, the commissioner wants to know the point of view of that character. They want to follow the narrative from that character. They don’t accept that this character can be just a supporting act.
Because they blocked us for so many years, we decided to change the name of (the White character) Alice to Salma. From (that moment), nobody cared. It was not a problem that she was secondary anymore. No readers identified themselves with her, so they cannot read and be like, “Where’s my point of view?” “Where’s my narrative twin?” That’s the only thing that unlocked the funding. It’s dispiriting."
The Docteur Is In
The Congolese rumba pioneer Docteur Nico helped define the sound of African decolonization—and became one of the great visionaries of the electric guitar. David Beal, New York Review of Books, March 11, 2026
