# Cinema of Mozambique

The cinema of Mozambique (Portuguese: Cinema de Moçambique) refers to the films and the film industry of Mozambique, which creates films in Portuguese (see List of Mozambican films). Furthermore, some foreign films have been produced about Mozambique or were shot there, such as Sidney Pollack's 2005 The Interpreter, Edward Zwick's 2006 Blood Diamond, and Teresa Prata's 2007 Sleepwalking Land (Terra Sonambula), an adaptation of the novel by Mozambican author Mia Couto.

## History

After the independence of Mozambique on June 25, 1975, the new marxist regime of the FRELIMO party invested in cinematic film production to show its own vision. It invited established European film directors like French Jean Godard (1930–2022) and Jean Rouch (1917–2022) to work on film and video projects in Mozambique in the years 1977-1998: Godard to research video for television and Rouch for a Super 8 film project teaching at the Communications Department of Eduardo Mondlane University, while the Portuguese-Brazilian film director Ruy Guerra (born in Maputo, 1931) worked at the Maputo Instituto Nacional de Cinema [de] (INC) founded by FRELIMO in 1976. For instance Brazilian-Mozambican director Licínio Azevedo worked with Godard and Guerra in Maputo, or at least felt the influence of Godard and Rouch. In 2003 the Portuguese film maker Margarida Cardoso [de] directed the documentary Kuxa Kanema: The Birth of Cinema detailing the founding of the National Institute of Cinema.

## Mozambican film directors

Well-known Mozambican film directors include Fátima Albuquerque, Licínio Azevedo, José Cardoso (born 1939), Chico Carneiro [de], Sol de Carvalho (born 1953 in Beira, Mozambique), Yara Costa, Mickey Fonseca, Victor Lopes [pt], Rogério Manjate, Orlando Mesquita Lima (born 1962 in Nampula), Isabel Noronha, Pedro Pimenta [de] (born 1955), Camilo de Sousa, and Lara Sousa. British film maker Karen Boswall worked in Mozambique between 1993 and 2007.

## Popular Mozambican films

In 2016, according to the Internet Movie Database the most popular Mozambican films were the following:
| Year | Film | Genre | Director | Starring | Duration |
| 1977 | 25 | Documentary on Mozambique's independence and President Samora Machel's revolutionary government. | Celso Luccas, José Celso Martinez Corrêa | Samora Machel | 120 m |
| 1998 | Nelio's Story / Comédia Infantil [fr] | Drama feature, based on Henning Mankell's 1995 novel Comédia infantil. Nelio, a young boy wounded in the Mozambican civil war, relates how he survived. | Solveig Nordlund | Evaristo Abreu, Adelino Branquinho, Augusto Cabral | 93 m |
| 2003 | Disobedience / Desobediência | Drama feature. Rosa is accused of having caused the suicide of her husband. | Licínio Azevedo | Rosa Castigo, Tomás Sodzai | 92 m |
| 2007 | Another Man's Garden / O Jardim do Outro Homem [es] | Drama feature. Medical student Sofia finds that her professor wants more from her than just hard work. | Sol de Carvalho | Evaristo Abreu, Timóteo Maposse, Maria Amélia Pangane | 80 m |
| 2012 | Virgin Margarida / Virgem Margarida | Drama feature. By mistake Margarida, a sixteen-year-old girl from the countryside, was arrested in a 1975 Maputo sweep of all the prostitutes. | Licínio Azevedo | Iva Mugalela, Hermelinda Cimela, Sumeia Maculuva | 90 m |
| 2014 | Yvone Kane [pt] | Drama feature. Rita returns to her childhood's Africa to investigate the death of Yvone Kane, a former political activist and guerrilla fighter. | Margarida Cardoso | Beatriz Batarda, Irene Ravache, Samuel Malumbe | 117 m |
| 2016 | The Train of Salt and Sugar / Comboio de Sal e Açúcar | Adventure feature. In the Mozambican civil war, a train with passengers hoping to trade salt for sugar travels 500 miles through RENAMO guerrilla-held territory. | Licínio Azevedo | Thiago Justino, Absalão Maciel, Matamba Joaquim | 93 m |

## Literature

* Convents, Guido (2009). Een andere kijk op cinema : film en audiovisuele cultuur in Mozambique / Deel I. Filmcultuur in koloniaal Mozambique (1896–1975) [Another look at cinema : film and audiovisual culture in Mozambique / Part I. Film culture in colonial Mozambique (1896–1975)]. Cinemagie. Driemaandelijks filmtijdschrift, jrg. 48 (zomer 2009) 267 (in Dutch). [Laken] (Belgium): Vzw Filmmagie. OCLC 793579548.
* Convents, Guido (2010). Een andere kijk op cinema : film en audiovisuele cultuur in Mozambique / Deel II. Filmcultuur in het onafhankelijke Mozambique (1975–2010) [Another look at cinema : film and audiovisual culture in Mozambique / Part II. Film culture in the independent Mozambique (1975–2010)]. Cinemagie. Driemaandelijks filmtijdschrift, jrg. 49 (zomer 2010) 271 (in Dutch). [Laken] (Belgium): Vzw Filmmagie. OCLC 793579588.
* De Medeiros, Paulo; Apa, Livia, eds. (2021). Contemporary Lusophone African Film : transnational communities and alternative modernities. London and New York: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group. ISBN 9780367134976. OCLC 1176322750.
* Gray, Ros (2020). Cinemas of the Mozambican revolution : anti-colonialism, independence and internationalism in filmmaking, 1968-1991. Woodbridge, Suffolk: James Currey. doi:10.2307/j.ctvktrx4b. ISBN 9781847012371. JSTOR j.ctvktrx4b. OCLC 1140135081. Retrieved 18 April 2024. Full text PDFs online at www.cambridge.org, consulted on April 18, 2024.