Social & External
The people behind it
A Luta Continua explains the military struggle of the Liberation Front of Mozambique (FRELIMO) against the Portuguese. Produced and narrated by American activists Robert Van Lierop, it details the relationship of the liberation to the wider regional and continental demands for self-determination against minority rule. It notes the complicit roles of foreign governments and companies in supporting Portugal against the African nationalists. Footage from the front lines of the struggle helps contextualize FRELIMO's African socialist ideology, specifically the role of the military in building the new nation, a commitment to education, demands for sexual equality, the introduction of medical aid into the countryside, and the role of culture in creating a single national identity.
Examines the conflicts between true love and social conventions. Sheila and Alfredo find themselves at an emotional crossroads, facing ethical dilemmas and questioning the lies they perpetuate to avoid painful confrontations. They embark on a journey of self-acceptance and the pursuit of happiness, challenging the norms imposed by society.
Two boys with different experiences and goals meet up in a sprawling African market. One is looking for a job, to get back what was stolen from him and return home. The other will do anything to avoid having to go back with his family. They become friends and together they reinvent the world.
"Ritual reversals" or "rituals of rebellion" are concepts used for mock rituals performed in Southern and Eastern Africa. During fertility rituals, like rain ceremonies, women in their songs and dances demonstrate obscene behaviour while they behave like men. These are secret performances open strictly for elderly men and women. Still, we were invited to record the rain making ceremony in the land of Chief Chassuka, Manika Province in Mozambique, in order to document the ritual for the younger generations. These rituals are a fading tradition probably due to the special character of the songs and dances.
Sofia, a young girl in Mozambique who is studying to be a doctor, finds that her professor wants more from her than hard work. An unwillingness to compromise her values and potentially her health, may cost her a place there.
A small island, a great history. Long before giving its name to the country, the Mozambique island had a fundamental role in the Indian Ocean during centuries. Anchor point for caravels, meeting point for pirates, it is a melting pot of races. It raises its walls in the middle of the sea. Its winding streets full of life reveal small palaces, churches and white houses. Its inhabitants are eccentric characters, proud of the island's past history. As we wander through the streets we meet an historian, a maritime archaeologist, a fisherman, the "doorman" of the island, a dancer, many spirits...
Documentary on Mozambican music, and the role it played in the country's rediscovering its national identity after centuries of colonial rule.
Mueda was a massacre. The name is that of the village in Northern Mozambique where in 1960 it took place. The Portuguese colonial regime did the killing. In independent Mozambique, those inhabitants of Mueda who survived regularly re-enact the massacre in situ. They themselves play the roles of victims, assassins, and spectators. Ruy Guerra, now a Brazilian but born in Lourenço Marques (now Maputo, the capital of Mozambique), filmed this extraordinary creation of liberated popular culture, intercutting it with first-hand interviews on the massacre. The mix is compelling, and the grave yet joyous spectacle unique.
Based on the book by Henning Mankell (Sweden), this story takes place in Mozambique and is about a young boy, Nelio, who loses his entire family during a time of civil war. A wounded Nelio is found by a baker in the capital Mapouto; refusing medical treatment, the boy instead asks for sanctuary so he can tell his terrible tale. This he proceeds to do, starting with how the fighters arrived in his village and slaughtered many, to his captivity, his escape and his teaming with other orphaned street urchins to become their leader in survival.
Dr. Emma Collins and her team are spending their third summer on the island of Little Happy studying the effect of climate change on the great white sharks who come to the nearby nursery every year to give birth. Along with the last two inhabitants of this former fishing village, their peaceful life is disrupted when a "scientific" team led by her ex-boyfriend and marine biologist Richard show up looking for three bull sharks who we soon learn aren't just any bull sharks.
Sick in Africa follows the true stories of several Mozambicans from the Yawo tribe who are ill, but searching for healing and answers.
In 2007, Beau attempted to paddle 4000kms from one side of Africa to the other. Starting in Mozambique, he continued along the Southern African coast, allowing five months to complete the voyage. Battling surf, deep sea swell, and too many days waiting for the wind, Beau only completed 2000kms of the original plan.
Pangolins are unique, bizarre, adorable creatures, but due to the demand for their scales on the illegal market, they’re also the most trafficked animal in the world. To turn the tide, wildlife veterinarian Elias Mubobo knows the solution rests in the hands of the local community — many of whom have never seen a pangolin in the wild.
Karen is a Muslim independent young woman who advocates for Sharia in the Island of Mozambique but is filled with doubts and contradictions about her identity and the multicultural community in which she lives in a place of historical confluence of cultures.
Limpopo, dating from 1970, directed and produced by Jorge de Sousa, is a story about safaris where the protagonist was a rich industrialist from Porto. It was filmed in Lourenço Marques, in the Limpopo colony and the Maputo elephant reserve.
As children, a Mozambique native and a Portuguese colonialist were friends. Years have passed and Mozambique is fighting for its independence. Two childhood friends meet on opposing sides.
A sequence of archive images filmed by Schefer's grandfather, a former colonial administrator, is the starting point for an experimental documentary on the history and memory of Portuguese decolonisation. Double or split memory: the lived and descriptive memory of the colonizers (their texts, their images) against the fabricated memory of their descendants.
An American pilot assists the Portuguese colonial police who are battling a gang of criminals involved in drug smuggling from Lisbon to Mozambique to Zanzibar.
Chapman is an ex-marine in Brazil's slums, battling the yakuza outfit who attacked his sister and left her for dead.
Tom and Mae Garvey are a Tennessee farming couple battling violent floods to save their land. In addition to natural disasters, the Garveys fight to stop a selfish land developer and a local corporation from foreclosing on their farm. While Mae stays at home to care for their children and tend to the crops, Tom finds work as a scab at a steel mill to preserve his family's property.
Set in the African savannah, the film follows Kion as he assembles the members of the 'Lion Guard'. Throughout the film, the diverse team of young animals will learn how to utilize each of their unique abilities to solve problems and accomplish tasks to maintain balance within the Circle of Life, while also introducing viewers to the vast array of animals that populate the prodigious African landscape.
Former special forces operative Danny is forced back onto a remote island when a violent, secretive community takes revenge by abducting his daughter Alex, launching a relentless hunt against enemies prepared for his every move.
Super-assassin John Wick returns with a $14 million price tag on his head and an army of bounty-hunting killers on his trail. After killing a member of the shadowy international assassin’s guild, the High Table, John Wick is excommunicado, but the world’s most ruthless hit men and women await his every turn.
The autobiography of a Somalian nomad who was sold in marriage at 13, fled from Africa a while later to become finally an American supermodel and is now at the age of 38, the UN spokeswoman against female genital mutilation.
A former American G.I. joins a yakuza family after his release from prison in post-World War II Osaka.
A Coca-Cola bottle dropped from an airplane raises havoc among a normally peaceful tribe of African bushmen who believe it to be a utensil of the gods.
War correspondent Ernie Pyle joins Company C, 18th Infantry as this American army unit fights its way across North Africa in World War II. He comes to know the soldiers and finds much human interest material for his readers back in the States. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with The Film Foundation in 2000.
A young Western woman is recruited by the Mossad to go undercover in Tehran where she becomes entangled in a complex triangle with her handler and her subject.
The Mambo Kings tells the story of César and Nestor Castillo, brothers and aspiring musicians who flee from Cuba to America in search of the American Dream.
In 13th century Ireland a group of monks must escort a sacred relic across a landscape fraught with peril.
The story of former Ulster Volunteer Force member Alistair Little. Twenty-five years after Little killed Joe Griffin's brother, the media arrange an auspicious meeting between the two.
When George Tanner does business with high-ranking Yakuza Tono, Tono kidnaps his daughter, and George summons his old friend, private eye Harry Kilmer, to Japan to investigate.
Two teenage boys find a fugitive hiding out on an island in the Mississippi River and help him reunite with his lover and escape an avenging family and their armed posse.
A ragtag group barricade themselves in an old Pennsylvania farmhouse to remain safe from a horde of flesh-eating ghouls ravaging the Northeast.
When his wife Kate is kidnapped by terrorists for ransom, veteran war hero Brad Paxton races against the clock to rescue her in a daring and deadly operation that pits him against powerful and dark forces.
A couple celebrates their son’s birthday in the middle of the ocean on their boat. A violent storm hits and it brings up hungry creatures from the depths and they fight for their survival.
Two misfit castaways struggle to reunite an unorthodox family, out-run a volcano, and negotiate a peace deal on a creaking Ark.
Set between the two World Wars and based on true historical events, Bitter Harvest conveys the untold story of the Holodomor, the genocidal famine engineered by the tyrant Joseph Stalin. The film displays a powerful tale of love, honour, rebellion and survival at a time when Ukraine was forced to adjust to the horrifying territorial ambitions of the burgeoning Soviet Union.