Mortu Nega

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 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.
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
Bia Gomes as Diminga
Tunu Eugenio Almada as Sako
Mamadu Uri Balde as Sanabaio
M'Make Nhasse as Lebeth
Sinho Pedro DaSilva as Estin
Homma Nalete as Mandembo
Caio Leucadio Almeida as Onkono
Brinsam as Irene Lopes
Abi Cassama as Nurse
Ernesto Moreira as Doctor
Flora Gomes as Head of Sector
Technical information
Script – Flora Gomes, Manuel Rambault Barcellos, and David Lang
Production – National Film Institute of Guinea-Bissau
Producers – Cecília Fonseca, Odette Rosa, Nina Neves Aimée and Jacques Zajdermann
Photography – Dominique Gentil
Editing – Christiane Lack
Format – 35 mm film
Genre – historical docufiction, ethnofiction
Duration – 92 minutes
Distribution – California Newsreel
Festivals and Shows
1988 – Venice Film Festival, August 29 (2 Honorable Mentions)
1989 – Panafrican Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou (FESPACO), March
1989 – Cannes Film Festival, May 16
1989 – Belgian Cinedecouvertes, July
1989 – London Film Festival – November 16–20
1990 – Seattle International Film Festival – May 28
1990 – Journées Cinématographiques de Carthage (French), Tunis, October – November (bronze Tanit award)
1997 – 9th Annual Cascade Festival of African Films, February 20
2000 – New York Film Center, June 20
2000 – African Film Festival, November 26
2003 – Flora Gomes Retrospective and African Film Festival at Brown University
See also
Docufiction
List of docufiction films
Cinema of Portugal
African Cinema
References
External links
Mortu Nega (1988) – IMDb page about Mortu Nega
Mortu Nega – California Newsreel
Mortu Nega – Film.com page about Mortu Nega
Mortu Nega (1988) – refusing to give up – Overview/review of the film
Mortu Nega/Death Denied – Portland Community College course page about Mortu Nega.
Mortu Nega – Brown University, Department of African Studies
L'Afrique Subsaharienne et la Mondialisation – article by Catherine Maya (French)
Bissau-Guinean films
1988 films
Ethnofiction films
Films set in the 1970s
Films set in Guinea
Films set in Guinea-Bissau