From Music-Video to Musical Video Portraits Collaborative Production of Women's Ethnographies in Mozambique

Abstract

Following Independence in Mozambique in 1975, the newly formed National Film Institute conducted a study into the reception of the audio-visual material being produced and distributed throughout the country by the
new generation of Mozambican film-makers. The study, published in 1984, concluded that, for a country with 46 different languages, and high levels of illiteracy, one of the most effective cinematic languages their new
generation of local film-makers could use was one drawing extensively on the language of music. Films based on images and music could transcend the cultural and linguistic barriers of the colonially divided nation. Soon
after this study was published a civil war brought the training of young Mozambican film-makers to a grinding halt and the report on effective cinematic language for social change was all but forgotten. Only now, as peace and economic growth are bringing relative stability to the country, the next generation of Mozambican filmmakers have returned to the language of the music-video as a means to inform, provoke and protest. In this paper, I reflect on how young Mozambican film-makers drew on this rich legacy of musical film language in the collaborative creation of a film series entitled “Fala Minha Irmã (Speak My Sister). I explore the collaborative methodology of the research and production of these six films, assessing the impact of the existing knowledge of the language of the music-video and the intimate connections between the film-makers and their protagonists had on the films and their diverse audiences.