Mortu nega

It’s 1973, and the people of Guinea-Bissau are engaged in the struggle against the Portuguese colonialists. A recurring image: soldiers and civilians intermingled, marching together in a meandering line through an open field. Death lurks in the enemy helicopters above and the landmines below that can explode at any moment. This is a war movie, but one far from the norm: ample action and suspense, but no close-ups; battles, defeats and victories, but no individual heroes. We never see the white faces of the invaders, and the figures who resist form a colourful multitude, standing out all the more in this luminous restoration made from the Super 16 camera negative. A new country requires a new film grammar, and Flora Gomes is up to that ambitious task. Unlike other African films made at the dawn of independence, MORTU NEGA is at once a tribute to the guerillas and a meditation on the post-liberation reality, addressing both the threats of corruption and bureaucracy and the daily forms of collective endurance. The war is over, but old wounds can reopen. The way to overcome new challenges is through ritual, where the dead and the living can dance and deliberate together to invent a future. (Victor Guimarães)

Flora Gomes: THE BLUE EYES OF YONTA (1992), TREE OF BLOOD (1996), MY VOICE (2002), TWO FACES OF WAR (2007)