This article uses a reading of Zézé Gamboa's award-winning 2004 feature as a basis for an exploration of post-conflict Angolan screen culture and of its impact both at home and internationally. It considers how O Herói‟s depiction of a war-torn nation, and of the impediments to its reconstruction, negotiates between a socially-engaged film-making practice, informed by local tradition and the tenets of „Third Cinema‟, and the demands of a globalised cinema market. The film achieves this compromise by deploying allegorical and symbolic tropes, familiar from the literature, cinema, and political discourse of the era of Angolan liberation (notably, the concept of a socialist „new man‟), to complicate a superficially optimistic story of post-conflict rehabilitation, and to insinuate a critique of the authoritarian practices and neo-liberal policies of the MPLA government.
Afroscreen
19.12.2011 | by Mark Sabine
The variety of techniques and approaches to film in use in the present day impedes overarching judgments. Women’s increasing esteem and importance within the world of cinema has led to a diversity of intentions and perspectives; moreover, the character of global culture is such that the lines separating Africa from the West are no longer so clear as before.
Afroscreen
06.12.2011 | by Beatriz Leal Riesco
This book discusses colonial and postcolonial textuality under the theoretical scope of Literary Theory, Cultural Critique and Anthropology.
It focuses mostly but not exclusively on Angola and Moçambique. In these countries, Ethnographic Fiction has emerged as a genre that inspired until this day "violent readings" of history and society.
Mukanda
29.11.2011 | by Ana Maria Mão-de-Ferro Martinho
In Ethiopia films are financed entirely by private businessmen, who anticipate profit out of film production; in a best case, individuals who want to finance films for the love of the art and as a side business with less anticipation of big profit. Yet both groups of producers want to see their production at least covering its own cost and become a sustainable sector.
Afroscreen
29.11.2011 | by Aron Yeshitila
For the most part, prevailing definitions of gender in African studies have come from disciplines located within the Western body of knowledge. Scholars are often unaware how much these definitions are steeped in the mores and norms of the Judeo-Christian tradition, and the social conventions of European and European American cultures.
To read
01.11.2011 | by Nkiru Nzegwu
The stage and the auditorium are darkened. Suddenly a noise of clinking glasses in the audience is to hear. The stage light is slowly moved in, it remains dimmed considerably. The room is bare, dark and corresponds to a black box theatre. One can see a mountain of white cups on the right half of the stage.
Stages
20.10.2011 | by Grit Köppen
While some commentators and journalists have dismissed Occupy Wall Street as carnival, lawmakers and policemen did not miss the point. Carnival per se, the Shrovetide festival, hardly exists in the United States anymore, save for Mardi Gras in New Orleans and the West-Indian American or Labor Day Parade in Brooklyn, a pan-Caribbean celebration.The carnivalesque, however, as medium of emancipation and instrument of political protest, is alive and well. (...) Carnivalesque protests are a staple of the anti-corporate globalization movement.
City
18.10.2011 | by Claire Tancons
"I think there are so many misconceptions about African cultures. Besides, I use the ideas of used objects for rituals, but the material is different. Sometimes I abstract additionally the movements of such rituals. Anyway, I feel the need to alienate ritual elements; they mainly serve as an inspiration for me".
Stages
11.10.2011 | by Grit Köppen
My concern is not to say who is and who is not Angolan. In Angola, as in any modern society, being Angolan is defined by the nationality law. Portugal began to nationalize all the native of colonies during the colonial war. Denationalizing them was among the first political acts of the government resulted from the 25th of April.
To read
09.10.2011 | by António Tomás
A particular cultural expression results from an expectation that a group has in relation to the culture and the world, but also in its hereditary burden, in what, in the English-speaking world, is well called heritage. Of course, because of tradition or expectation, many of these cultures and groups come into conflict. It may be productive, since it is assumed as a normal part of democracy. As there is negotiation between groups and cultural expressions, where the intervention in the city and political and social issues cannot be replaced by culture, we find ourselves in a rich and democratic situation. Cultural productions should translate that.
Face to face
06.10.2011 | by Marta Lança
Lusosphere has a long way to go to become more interesting. If considered from the Portuguese standpoint, lusosphere reverberates the colonial past, people relate to and interest in the stories of each other more forcefully within the boundary of this "imagined community" that, despite this name, does not help them in living conditions and, if a Lusophone project exists, in most respects it has failed miserably.
Games Without Borders
03.10.2011 | by Marta Lança
Carlos is the character I am most worried about. I’d only spent a few hours with him before, and I am not sure what he will reveal about his time in Angola and how that will fit into the film. He is a fisherman, his skin deeply tanned from a lifetime at sea.
Afroscreen
01.10.2011 | by Dulce Fernandes
Beyond Boetjan and the South African connection, occupation of one form or another has always been part of the collective psyche of Mozambique. Attempts to explore this, however, are far more recent. A new mixed media exhibition, Ocupações Temporárias (temporary occupations), sees five young Mozambican artists attempt to do just that.
I'll visit
01.10.2011 | by Dave Durbach
Multiple award-winning dancer, choreographer, teacher and development activist Mamela Nyamza, the 2011 Standard Bank Young Artist Award Winner for Dance, started using dance to translate the world around her as a child growing up in Gugulethu in the 1980s.
Stages
28.09.2011 | by SouthAfrica Reporter
The solo violin playing of Isaac Molelekoa is so impressive, melancholic and space pervading that the viewers are dispelled. Extremely slow a dancer becomes visible, who stands in a narrow cone of light in the center of the stage. It is a quiet, strong and contrastive picture - this disturbing music of the violinist, that encourages you to move either internally or externally, and the continued structural integrity of the dancer Maqoma on stage.
Stages
22.09.2011 | by Grit Köppen
Isn't only about toppling the reigning dictators, but it is an enduring protest movement challenging, at the same time, both various dimensions of the internal social order, especially glaring inequalities in income distribution, and the international order, the place of Arab countries in the global economic order.
Face to face
19.09.2011 | by Samir Amin
I set lusosphere as a debate far from any substance, a virtual focus that, referring to Portuguese language, develops its own dynamics in different national contexts. Far from being in front of a consensual thought, lusosphere hovers on situations of tension that put in contact these different contexts with each other.
To read
17.09.2011 | by Omar Thomaz Ribeiro
Pedro F. Marcelino has released a study on the new migratory paradigm emerging in post-9/11 Cape Verde. The study reflects a socio-economic context in which out-migration to traditional overseas destinations is no longer the only migratory phenomenon in the islands. The country has seen a steep increase in part- and full-time resident Europeans, as well as Chinese and continental African migrants. The research proposes that anti-terrorist measures and immigration control policies in both the USA and the EU after 9/11 have altered the migratory map of West Africa, whilst failing to curb people’s aspirations to depart and seek a better life.
To read
16.09.2011 | by P.J. Marcellino
Stating that sorcery exists in Mozambique is a mere declaration of an obvious and recurring fact. People may use it in order to obtain active results or to protect oneself from undesirable events, in the pursuance of legitimate or illegitimate, beneficial or malevolent goals. The effectiveness of this practice is, nonetheless, an issue that tends to divide readers between outspoken scepticism, attitudes of plausible doubt, complex speeches about its symbolic efficacy, and a somewhat apprehensive fear or agreement.
To read
15.09.2011 | by Paulo Granjo
This year, as we embark on the sixth edition of Dockanema, my purpose is also one of remembrance, so that we do not forget the importance of documentaries in our society, and above all in our collective memory. To reaffirm this purpose once more, there could be no better choice for the opening of the 6th Dockanema than the Patrício Guzman film Nostalgia da Luz, in an edition intended to pay homage to the master filmmaker Ruy Guerra.
Afroscreen
07.09.2011 | by Pedro Pimenta
