Mortu Nega / Those Whom Death Refused (2025 restoration The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project & Cineteca di Bologna) in the presence of Sana Na N’Hada

 

Flora Gomes: Mortu Nega / Those Whom Death Refused (GW 1988).

GW (Guinea-Bissau) © 1988 I.N.C. Bissa. Prod.: Instituto Nacional de Cinema da Guiné-Bissau. 

    Director: Flora Gomes, Scen.: Manuel Rambout Barcelos, Flora Gomes, David Lang. F.: Dominique Gentil – colour. M.: Christiane Lack. Mus.: Djanun Dabo Sidonio, Pais Cuaresma. Int.: Bia Gomes (Diminga), Mamadu Uri Balde (Sanabaio), Tunu Eugenio Almada (Sako), Pedro da Silva (Estin), Homna Nalete (Mandembo), M’Male Nhasse (Labeth).

    96 min

    In Creole and Portuguese with English subtitles

    Restored nel 2025 by The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project and Cineteca di Bologna at L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory, in collaboration with Flora Gomes. Funding provided by the Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation. Special thanks to Arsenal – Institut für Film und Videokunst. Restored in 4K from the original Super 16 mm camera negative and the 35 mm magnetic sound, stored at LTC Laboratories. Grading supervised by Dominique Gentil and Flora Gomes

    DCP from The Film Foundation

    Il Cinema Ritrovato, Bologna 2025: Cinemalibero.

    Introduced by Sana Na N’Hada, hosted by Cecilia Cenciarelli.

    Viewed at Cinema Jolly with e-subtitles in Italian by Immagine Ritrovata, 26 June 2025.

The vultures circulate everywhere. Flora Gomes, excerpt from an interview by Ela Bittencourt, “Metrograph”, June 2022 (as Bologna program note 2025): "This restoration is part of the African Film Heritage Project, an initiative created by The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project, the FEPACI and UNESCO – in collaboration with Cineteca di Bologna – to help locate, restore and disseminate African cinema."

"The war began when I was an adolescent. My family moved from Cadique to another region, and it was there that I met Amílcar Cabral. I was expecting to see a tall man and indeed encountered a giant! Cabral wanted to document the birth of our country, so he sent a group of us to Cuba, to study at Instituto Cubano del Arte e Industria Cinematográficos (ICAIC), with this purpose."

"When I returned, he asked us to document the life in the liberated regions – the war, but also the daily lives of people in the countryside, and what life was like under Portuguese rule. He had a clear vision of what cinema could do."

"We inherited a country with a very high level of illiteracy, and that’s why Cabral wanted us to depict life in images, not words. His aim wasn’t to merely free Cape Verde or Guinea-Bissau, it was to liberate us from fear and ignorance: he could have invested in arms but he gave us cameras instead."

"In a way, I consider him our first filmmaker… When the film was ready, we showed it to Chris Marker, who was not just a man of enormous intelligence but also one of our masters …"

"I tried to tell so many stories with this film! It’s like condensing a discourse of hundreds of pages into seconds. Mortu Nega is a story of a woman who chooses to join the struggle, because she herself wants to be free – and there’s nothing in this world like wanting to be free."

"But she also yearns for her husband. She searches for him for months, years. The story’s as intimate as the scent of tobacco. In the film, Diminga carries tobacco with her instead of food, because there are so many people, she could never feed them all. But she can carry and share the tobacco."

"It was important that the film be about such small details. The story ends when it becomes clear that Cabral is dead; everything he built has been dismantled. Diminga, who has lost everything, returns to her village determined to cultivate the land. It may seem that the struggle is over, but it isn’t." The vultures circulate everywhere. Flora Gomes, excerpt from an interview by Ela Bittencourt, “Metrograph”, June 2022 (as Bologna 2025 program note)

AA: Mortu Nega by Flora Gomes is a classic of the cinema of liberation, now seen in a gorgeous restoration, in vibrant colour, doing justice to its epic message of militant resistance. It is a war film based on dignity, bravery and the triumph of the spirit of the colonialized people against the militarily superior colonizer. The long marches are full of peril. Land mines stay on the ground forever. You need to keep following in the predecessor's footsteps. Fighters keep perishing in explosions. Villages are set on fire. You keep drowning in mud. On the other hand, the joy is overwhelming in moments of dance and partying. I would love to listen to an album of the music of Mortu Nega. Evidently the Portuguese are getting tired, losing faith in their cause. They try to outsource fighting to helicopters. And to Black fighters. The marches of the freedom fighters keep growing. The light is intense. There is nothing more glorious than a people who is fighting for justice, liberty and their right to live. Mortu Nega is a great war film and unique because it has been made inside the liberation fight itself. Gradually the war is over. Veterans are welcomed in their home villages. We see fascinating art in indigenous murals. There is a powerful life current in them. Woman are in charge of the agriculture. Trucks deliver goods. Wounds are healed. "I spent my best years as a fighter". And now I am spent. Everybody is waiting for rain. Vultures are on the prowl. Wells run dry. In dreams, memories of the fights have lost none of their power to disturb. The survivors are "those whom death refused". The visions of the landscapes are engrossing. A war invalid witnesses a rainstorm.