“A Way of Listening”: Knowledge-Keeper Petna Ndaliko Katondolo Talks About Documentary’s Capacity to Rethink Community
This article features an interview with Petna Ndaliko Katondolo, a Yira knowledge-keeper and keynote speaker, who discusses ancestral ecology storytelling and the role of documentary in rethinking community. He founded Yole!Africa, an arts and community space in Congo, which promotes ancestral regeneration and community transformation through art, even amidst conflict.
Why it matters
Katondolo's work highlights the power of indigenous knowledge and art in fostering community resilience and transformation, particularly in regions affected by conflict and displacement. His approach offers a unique perspective on cultural preservation and social change.
Petna Ndaliko Katondolo. All images courtesy of Alkebu Film Productions, unless otherwise noted
In this interview, Getting Real ’26 keynote speaker Petna Ndaliko Katondolo discusses the practice of ancestral ecology storytelling and using documentary’s capacity to create and rethink community
Yira storyteller Petna Ndaliko Katondolo does not call himself an artist. In Nande, his mother tongue, the closer term is “knowledge keeper.” To be a knowledge keeper is not to create a story as a single, solitary author, but to activate what a lineage already holds: a way of seeing and listening that colonization tried, and failed, to sever. It is the work of ongoing becoming.
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