Divina Comédia

Following the 1884–85 Berlin Conference resolution on the partition of Africa, the Portuguese army uses a talented ensign to register the effective occupation of the territory belonging to the Cuamato people, conquered in 1907, in the south of Angola. A STORY FROM AFRICA enlivens a rarely seen photographic archive through the tragic tale of Calipalula, the Cuamato nobleman essential to the unfolding of events in this Portuguese pacification campaign.

Are even the best and brightest revolutionary movements doomed to inevitable compromise, betrayal and failure? That question haunts this documentary, a biography of Angolan-born Mário Pinto de Andrade (1928–1990), a key figure in African revolutionary and anti-colonial struggles.

“Rio do Ouro and Água-Izé were among the largest cocoa plantations in São Tomé and Príncipe during the Portuguese colonial era. Thousands were marked by forced labour equivalent to slavery. I return to my country to find the traces of that past.” — Silas Tiny