‘Bill Gates Congo Man’ and his Crafty Crew of Preteen Gangsters

Meet three street kids growing up in war-ravaged Eastern Congo who survive on petty hustling, an unconventional sense of brotherhood, and no shortage of charm.

Interview by Holly Lynn Ellis

Theo Anthony’s short film “Chop My Money” depicts a day in the life of three street kids in the Eastern Congo. Largely unsupervised and living in a region ravaged by war, David, Guillan and Patient — or “Bill Gates Congo Man,” as he likes to be called — are self-proclaimed gangsters, although their primary money-making routine consists of hustling the town’s NGO workers for spare change. But the tough-talking trio conforms to no preconceptions of what children growing up in a war zone should be like. Instead, they insist on writing their own story.

Holly Lynn Ellis: Tell me about your background and what led you to the Congo.

Theo Anthony: I’m based in Baltimore. I didn’t go to film school, but I studied film theory. I got out of school and lived in Baltimore for a while, in New York for a while. I didn’t like the work that I was making; I didn’t like the scene I was making it in. My girlfriend at the time had just accepted an NGO position in Rwanda. She was…