Mortu Nega

Last updated
Mortu Nega
Mortu Nega (1988) Film Poster.jpg
Directed by Flora Gomes
Screenplay byManuel Rambout Barcelos
Flora Gomes
David Lang
Produced byInstituto Nacional de Cinema da Guiné-Bissau
StarringBia Gomez
Tunu Eugenio Almada
Mamadu Uri Balde
CinematographyDominique Gentil
Edited byChristiane Lack
Music byDjanun Dabo
Sidonio Pais Cuaresma
Release date
  • August 29, 1988 (1988-08-29)
Running time
85'
Country Guinea-Bissau
Language Crioulo

Mortu Nega (English: Death Denied or Those Whom Death Refused) is a 1988 historic film by Flora Gomes, a director from Guinea-Bissau. Mortu Nega was Gomes' first feature-length film and the first film produced in independent Guinea-Bissau. It was also the first ethnofiction film to show the experiences of the Guinea-Bissau War of Independence, blending contemporary history with mythology. Its world premiere was at the Venice Film Festival on August 29, 1988. [1]

Contents

Synopsis

1973: Diminga accompanies a group of camouflaged soldiers who travel down a path, in the middle of the shrubland, carrying supplies to a war front near Conakry, where Diminga's husband Sako is fighting. The country is ruined and there is death everywhere, but hope is what keeps life worth living. In the encampment where she meets Sako, Diminga does not have much time to enjoy his company. The rebels are gaining ground and they are certain that they will command victory.

1974–77: The end of the war, but not truly an end. There is a great drought across the country and life continues to be difficult. It is true that where Diminga lives, in between the crying, there are great celebrations for the end of the war. But the drought continues, Diminga has a sick husband and other fighting (mostly over rations) starts.

The film, in the words of its director, is an African parable. The colonies won their independence and eliminated Portuguese colonialism. A question that arises is about Africa's future. As Flora Gomes suggests, Africa cannot be itself without its beliefs, its myths, its philosophy, and its culture.

Interpretation

The year the film premiered, 1988 "not only marks the 25th anniversary of the independence of Guinea-Bissau and the assassination of its leader Amílcar Cabral, it is also the year in which the country was practically annihilated by a brutal civil war” (Teresa Ribeiro, a journalist for Voice of America). The film is an “elegy, not for the victims of the war of liberation, but for its survivors."

Mortu Nega has become a cult film seen as having “no ideologies or morals. It is a love story: nervous, carnal, sensitive” (René Marx, Pariscope, March 14, 1990).

Cast

Technical information

Festivals and Shows

See also


Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Guinea-Bissau</span> Country in West Africa

Guinea-Bissau, officially the Republic of Guinea-Bissau, is a country in West Africa that covers 36,125 square kilometres (13,948 sq mi) with an estimated population of 2,026,778. It borders Senegal to its north and Guinea to its southeast.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of Cape Verde</span>

The recorded history of Cape Verde begins with the Portuguese discovery of the island in 1458. Possible early references to Cape Verde date back at least 2,000 years.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde</span> Political party in Guinea-Bissau

The African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde is a political party in Guinea-Bissau. Originally formed to peacefully campaign for independence from Portugal, the party turned to armed conflict in the 1960s and was one of the belligerents in the Guinea-Bissau War of Independence. Towards the end of the war, the party established a socialist one-party state, which remained intact until multi-party democracy was introduced in the early 1990s. Although the party won the first multi-party elections in 1994, it was removed from power in the 1999–2000 elections. However, it returned to office after winning parliamentary elections in 2004 and presidential elections in 2005, since which it has remained the largest party in the National People's Assembly.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Guinea-Bissau War of Independence</span> 1963–1974 conflict for independence of Portuguese Guinea and Cape Verde

The Guinea-Bissau War of Independence, or the Bissau-Guinean War of Independence, was an armed independence conflict that took place in Portuguese Guinea from 1963 to 1974. It was fought between Portugal and the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde, an armed independence movement backed by Cuba, the Soviet Union, and Yugoslavia. The war is commonly referred to as "Portugal's Vietnam" because it was a protracted guerrilla war which had extremely high costs in men and materiel and which created significant internal political turmoil in Portugal.

Articles related to Guinea-Bissau include:

Carmen Maria de Araújo Pereira was a Bissau-Guinean politician. She served three days as Acting President in 1984, becoming the first woman in this role in Africa and the only one in Guinea-Bissau's history. She had the shortest term as the Acting President, serving only three days in office. She died in Bissau on 4 June 2016.

<i>Daresalam</i> 2000 Chadian film

Daresalam is a 2000 dramatic film by Chadian director Issa Serge Coelo. It has been considered one of the very few recent African films that has treated the theme of the internecine conflicts that have ravaged the African continent since independence. While set in a fictional African country called Daresalam, it reflects the civil war that ravaged Chad during the 1960s and 1970s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Docufiction</span> Film genre

Docufiction is the cinematographic combination of documentary and fiction, this term often meaning narrative film. It is a film genre which attempts to capture reality such as it is and which simultaneously introduces unreal elements or fictional situations in narrative in order to strengthen the representation of reality using some kind of artistic expression.

Ethnofiction refers to a subfield of ethnography which produces works that introduce art, in the form of storytelling, "thick descriptions and conversational narratives", and even first-person autobiographical accounts, into peer-reviewed academic works.

Flora Gomes is a Bissau-Guinean film director. He was born in Cadique, Guinea-Bissau on 31 December 1949 and after high school in Cuba, he decided to study film at the Instituto Cubano del Arte y la Industria Cinematográficos in Havana.

The Two Faces of War is a 2007 Portuguese documentary film directed by Diana Andringa and Flora Gomes. The film was shot in Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde and Portugal. The film includes a series of interviews and testimonies of people who lived through the period of the anti-colonial war and liberation in Guinea-Bissau.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Super Mama Djombo</span> Band from Guinea-Bissau

Super Mama Djombo is a band from Guinea Bissau who sing in Guinea-Bissau Creole. The band was formed in the mid-1960s, at a Boy Scout camp, when the members were only children. Mama Djombo is the name of a spirit that many fighters appealed to for protection during Guinea-Bissau's War of Independence.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">45th Venice International Film Festival</span> 1988 film festival edition

The 45th annual Venice International Film Festival was held from 29 August to 9 September 1988.

<i>My Voice</i> (film) 2002 Cape Verdean film

Nha Fala, English title: My Voice is a 2002 internationally co-produced musical film directed by Bissau Guinean director Flora Gomes. The movie stars Fatou N'Diaye, Ángelo Torres, Jean-Christophe Dollé and Bia Gomes.

Sana Na N’Hada is a filmmaker from Guinea Bissau, "the first filmmaker from Guinea-Bissau".

<i>The Blue Eyes of Yonta</i> 1991 film

Udju Azul di Yonta / The Blue Eyes of Yonta is a 1991 Portuguese film, the second film by the Bissau-Guinean director Flora Gomes. The government of Guinea-Bissau helped in production, together with the Institute of Cinema in Portugal, Vermedia Productions, and Portuguese television.

Xime is a 1994 Bissau-Guinean drama film directed by Sana Na N'Hada.

Teodora Inácia Gomes is a politician, feminist and women's rights activist, who is a former fighter in the struggle for Independence of Guinea-Bissau from Portuguese rule, and is Deputy Leader of African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC).

The cinema of Guinea-Bissau arose along with the country's independence. Since the Guinea-Bissau War of Independence, film in the country has remained an underfunded state-controlled industry. The earliest filmmaking in the country was influenced by Amílcar Cabral's views on propaganda, and consisted of documentation of the war of independence. Although the war was documented by foreign filmmakers, Cabral arranged for the education of four young Bissau-Guineans in Cuba in film technique. Early Bissau-Guinean films were produced by this group, and consisted of propaganda documentaries about the revolutionary struggle, although much of their footage is now lost.

References

  1. "Cinema and the Anticolonial Liberation Struggles: Mortu Nega". www.nottinghamcontemporary.org. Retrieved 2022-11-27.