Denise Fernandes

On Hanami by Denise Fernandes (and on Vóvó Nica’s burnt papaya tree)

This is one of those rare films that doesn’t penetrate your soul through the eyes but rather seeps in through your skin. It lingers in the inherited silences, it speaks through whispered gestures, it resurfaces in the anguished absences in our own lived experience. With the languid rhythm of a dry wind ascending the steep slope of a volcano to reach its plateau at sunset, and gently cool it for the night, this masterful feature doesn’t attempt to explain feelings. Instead, it gently offers a sense of belonging and, for us in the Capeverdean diaspora, a tableau of memory.

Afroscreen

08.08.2025 | by Pedro José-Marcellino aka P.J. Marcellino

Contemporary Capeverdean Cinema – cinema between islands, archives and the future

It’s about contesting narratives: not only narratives about Africa, Africans, Capeverdeans, and about our diverse perspectives, but also narratives about what cinema is, and what it can be, who gets to watch and be watched, who gets to speak and be heard. It is slow but necessary work. It is the work of re-inscribing our collective imagination with images that belong to us and that, in turn, transform us, and then the world.