Lusophone African Cinema Cycle

This cinema cycle brings together 1 feature and 3 documentary films, released in or telling about Portuguese speaking countries in Africa. In 2007 the cycle was presented in the Universities of Hamburg, Berlin and Stockholm; in 2008 it continues in Helsinki and Vilnius, and various universities in Poland, Germany and Austria. The cinema critic Nuno Sena will present the African cycle from the historical perspective of the Portuguese cinema and will approach topics of Portugal and its former colonies.
The films are subtitled in English.

 

PR O G R A M ME:

FEBRUARY 22

17:10 Cinema Cycle will be presented by Nuno Sena

KUXA KANEMA / O Nascimento do Cinema / Birth of Cinema

DOIS MUNDOS / Two Worlds

MARCH 12

18:00 PRETO E BRANCO / BLACK AND WHITE

MARCH 13

19:00 OUTRAS FRASES / Other Frases

PLACE: P673 (Porthania, Yliopistonkatu 3)

 

ABOUT THE FILMS:

 

Two Worlds (Dois Mundos)

Director: Graça Castanheira
Portugal, 2000, documentary, 52′

Rita is a young missionary who works in Mozambique. She is a member of an NGO with Christian inspiration, named The Secular for Development, and coordinates a project for bilingual primary schools in the country‘s remotest province Niassa. Two Worlds accompany Rita‘s efforts to understand the local culture and religion, while trying to get closer to the Mozambican people, their work and their hesitations.

 

 

kuxa Kanema (Birth of Cinema)
Director Margarida Cardoso
Portugal, 2003, documentary, 52′

From the weekly cinema newspaper from Mozambique Kuxa Kanema, the film tells the story of Mozambique cinema from the period immediately after the country’s independence in 1975. In a building destroyed by fire, the director has found images of the country’s trajectory – from a great hope to a great disillusionment, from the ideal of construction to the reality of destruction. Through these images and the reports of those who fabricated them, the film has been constructed as a history of the birth and death of a local cinema, along with the birth and death of an ideology and a dream that has collapsed.

 

 

Preto e Branco (Black and White)
Director Margarida Cardoso
Portugal, 2003, feature, 110′

A white man, a black man. They meet in Mozambique, during the Colonial War. The white man, in the end of a special operation, captures the black man, who had just arrived to Africa as volunteer for the liberation movements’ fight. By accident, they loose contact with the transport that should collect them, beginning a long walk in enemy territory.

 

 

OUTRAS FRASES (Other sentences)
Director: Jorge António
Portugal / Angola, 2003, documentary, 52′

Through research and reinterpretation of the traditional elements, Ana Clara Guerra Marques, Angolan dancer and choreographer, has been searching for new aesthetics and languages for the development of a contemporary Angolan dance. This film leads us through the problems, processes and stages of her pedagogic and artistic work against the background of the recent angolan social and political history. “Outras Frases” won the price “Best Documentary” in Portugal at the film festival Caminhos Do Cinema Português in 2004.

 

About Nuno Sena

Nuno Sena is one of the founders and chief programmers of IndieLisboa – Festival Internacional de Cinema Independente. He graduated from Communication Sciences with the specialization in Cinema. Formerly he worked at the Portuguese Institute of Cinema and was responsible for the programming and publishing department of the Cinemateca Portuguesa – Museu do Cinema. He was also a programmer of Doclisboa – Festival Internacional de Cinema Documental from 2004 to 2006. Currently he teaches film history at the Restart film and video school and writes occasionally about films for newspapers and magazines.