Movie-Database: Movies
PO DI SANGUI
Credits
Name: PO DI SANGUI
Country: Guinea Bissau
Year of publication: 1996
Format: 35 mm
Color: color
Language : OF m. dt. UT
Duration: 90 Minuten
Direction: Gomes, Flora; Fernández, Anita
Screenplay: Gomes, Flora
Camera: Marano, Vincenzo
Editing: Lack, Christiane
Sound: Donnadieu, Pierre
Actor: Naka, Ramiro; Kouyaté, Adama
Abstract
In the village of Amanha Lundju in Guinea-Bissau, tradition dictates that a tree is planted for each child that is born. The trees are considered to be the villagers’ spiritual twins. Dou left the village a long time ago, but he returns on the day his twin brother Hami dies. And further disaster looms: the tree fellers are moving in to wreak havoc. The old shaman Calacalado therefore orders the inhabitants of the village to move to the desert.
Director Flora Gomes’s third feature film tells the tale of a village community who go on a journey of discovery as an attempt to come to terms with the destruction of their way of life and the disregard shown for their ancestors’ traditions. Some of the scenes are captivatingly beautiful, and the film from 1996 has since become one of the classics of African cinema. It will be screened at the 2017 festival as part of the “land grabbing & migration” theme, because it demonstrates how land grabs and environmental destruction not only have social and economic consequences, but also erode the fundamental cultural and spiritual values of people in Africa.