Feature film
Mueda, Memory and Massacre
Mueda, memória e massacre
Ruy Guerra · 1979
Synopsis
In the square of Mueda, in Cabo Delgado, the inhabitants re-enact the day of 16 June 1960, when a peaceful crowd came to demand the release of two men who had returned from exile. Villagers, among them survivors such as Faustino Vanomba, one of the leaders, take turns playing the parts of the victims, the executioners and the onlookers; the Portuguese administrators and their African auxiliaries appear ignorant and ridiculous. Between scenes, survivors give testimony to the camera.
Context
The filmmaker filmed a performance that the inhabitants had given every year since independence, based on a play by Calisto dos Lagos, on the very square where the Portuguese soldiers had opened fire: fourteen dead according to the Portuguese report, more than six hundred according to Frelimo, a figure repeated in an intertitle. He mixed in testimonies from survivors. The film was produced by the state cinema institute, founded in 1976.
Who it is for
A film in Portuguese and Makonde, mixing documentary and reconstruction; the form, between popular theatre and testimony, is unusual.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as the first feature-length fiction film of independent Mozambique, it was shown again in 2016 by Cinéma du réel and the Festival des 3 Continents, then in Berlin.
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