Sol, where does your love for film come from?

 

We tend not to know why we enjoy a certain profession or a certain way to express ourselves in life. I remember that after the independence, when Television first appeared and we could only watch one Swaziland channel, the signal had terrible quality. I would come home to find my father watching TV. He didn’t even speak English but he was drawn to it and I think I inherited that from him. This way of looking into images and to identify their psychological, emotional and physical content is what film is for, as far as I’m concerned. I have a specific memory that I like and I even wrote on to the script of a film. We used to live in Inhambane and on sunday afternoons we would often go to Cinema Tofo to watch the cowboy movies. Every time a film started I would get very tense and I have to run to restroom to throw up. It happened many times. So you can’t explain why you like something. I was very young my room was full of film posters and when I went to study in Portugal I would often steal food, becauseI would spend all my money on films. (He laughs.)

 

So your father didn’t force it?

 

No on the contrary. I had to convince him I was going to Portugal to study architecture. I then went to take the exams at the Film Institute and performed well. I asked them to send my admission form to my father. And by the time he actually received the letter it was already too late for him to do anything about it. Then I got involved in politics and didn’t even finish my degree, when the independence came I went back to “surrender myself to the revolution”.

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“Mabata Bata” just won another three awards. Do you think the film has delivered what you expected from it?

 

It still has a road ahead, but it probably already reach its peak. One must understand the dynamics of the international film festival circuit. If you manage to get in a top festival, like we did with Mabata Bata, that’s great. We were selected to the Rotterdam Internacional Film Festival, regarded as one of the best in the world and then we got FESPACO, where we won editing and cinematography. When you win FESPACO, all the african festivals in the world will ant to have a look at your film. Mabata Bata managed to get in a lot of African related festivals which gives me great pleasure. We are up to 74 festivals and more than 20 awards and special mentions. The most interesting thing about it is that it actually was one of my cheapest feature films. Somewhere between 200 and 250 thousand dollars. The difference was this time I had a whole team helping round the clock. It was the team effort that enabled Mabata Bata. The film is not a personal achievement.

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But do you feel accomplished with this film?

I do. But I need new challenges, we all do.

 

FARAWAY FROM THE OSCARS 

With the quality and recognition we are obtaining, is it ok to dream about the Oscars? We were close before…

 

There was too much expectation, brought by the fact that a submission had been made. The media got hold of that and it was you that made that idea grow. That’s what you are capable of. But you need to realize that more than 200 countries apply for the Oscars. And you need around 150 thousand dollars just to promote the film. There is a lot of backstage lobbying just for your film to be considered a contender, which doesn’t mean you can win at all. I’m not saying the film didn’t deserve it, I respect Licínio’s films very much, but the expectation created didn’t correspond to the reality.

I don’t even know if the Academy took notice of it. Hollywood has a dimension that to be frank has nothing to do with ours. I don’t believe our productions can makes start thinking about the Oscars. There is still so much to do. 

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The amount of feature films we produce each year is very small…

 

In the last two years we produced 4 feature films, something without precedents in the history of our independent country.  “O avó dezanove e o segredo Soviético” by João Ribeiro was produced this year but didn’t premiere due to commercial reasons and because of the pandemic. But 4 feature films in two years is not bad at all. The only problem is that its only the directors with long white beards that are doing these feature films. It is time to give a chance to the young directors. And that is becoming difficult because we didn’t have an in-between generation, film was left adrift for many years.

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What are your thoughts on the Film and Audiovisual Law?

 

It’s not easy for me to speak about the law, because I’ve been since the very start involved in it, making propositions and discussing different points of view with my colleagues. I’m not entirely satisfied with it because many things we asked for are not in it. After much debate, we seemed to be reaching an agreement but in the end, the way it came out was different from what we had proposed.

What is important is that the state made a compromise, through the law, that every year there will be a public tender for production funding. I won’t argue if it is enough. The question is it took 40 years to finally achieve a direct funding support. There are young filmmakers that are working with no money at all, this is an important step for the new generation. But, there are still problems to solve.

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Such as?

 

The public tender sections, if the money foreseen by the law will actually reach the film productions and how it will be split. What we have right now is still not very much. Now that the first public tender has been launched will see what happens. This money is very important for a number of filmmakers to start producing films with another kind of stories, less commercial, outside the normal paradigm and that we can’t even imagine. We will continue to make pressure so there is more money and less centralized. 

The debate over presenting a script in order to get money is naive?

 

No one will give you money if they don’t know what you actually are going to do. In some places there might even be the intention to control editorially, and in others to control the script contents so the people who are paying understand the consistency of the work is there and feel comfortable choosing your project. You can’t invest in film without investing in the folder that shows you the script, the approach, the film locations, the editing ideas, your CV and budget.

There is this lazy and unprofessional idea that to make a film you just have to pick up a camera and shoot. That’s a lie. Preparation is necessary and its essencial in order to spend as little money as possible, so I don’t see the reason beyond the script debate.

 

OUR FILMS LACK COMPETENCE (OR KNOWLEDGE) AND MONEY

Can you give us an oversight of the state of film today?

 

There are myths within the Mozambican film world. One of them is that Hollywood is coming to Mozambique and that they are “our golden goose”. Hollywood came, did 4 films here, but then they left. Mafias started to appear, bureaucracy, corruption and the prices went up. So they left. You need to be careful feeding the goose or it will die. The other myth is that films give a profit. The film “Another man’s garden” had a two week run at the Cinema Xenon, meaning around 5000 people went to see it. If your film had a budget of 100 thousand dollars and 5000 people went to see it, your film doesn’t even make even. The film industry only works if in a population   of 50 million people a big majority has the capability to pay for a film ticket, where a film is widely distributed and therefore you have a good chance to get your money back. Such as in the USA, INDIA, CHINA, BRASIL and in our continent, NIGERIA. But not in our country, so you need to rely on the support of the State entities.

And finally we have a problem with the Art Schools. ISARC has to take on the whole country, because there is no doubt that right now someone form Maputo is better prepared than someone from Niassa, for example. So when your start teaching, there needs to be a balance. The technical and conceptual level of the students coming out of school isn’t good enough. And I start to see more and more people producing that have academic background.

 

There needs to be as well a better knowledge and understanding by the institutions that deal with film about what film really his. It is latent the ignorance about the film dynamics, the funding schemes, etc. We may also be lacking the humility to ask the older generation how things work. There needs to be a funding scheme towards writing. To write a film script is something very complex. A script is a work of art in itself, it has rules and we may think it is just a matter of sitting down and writing but it isn’t so. But it his in the writing stage that the work begins…

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Speaking of Industry, how do you look at the country’s current situation?

 

Let me be clear, there is no industry. For example, in our country in order to exist the film industry had to be linked to the TV Networks, which it isn’t. In other countries that separation doesn’t exist, neither existis the notion that TV is consumption and that film is good because it is art. Film and TV just be together.

There should also be incentives to produce, including foreign productions. There are African countries that already created film commissions in order to attract foreign filmmakers. But the taxes situation needs to be reviewed. We have a law filled with taxes that isn’t helping either. And then there is no doubt that film is an art that costs money to make, a lot of money. So it needs to be clear where we should be getting this money from. The Film law has only two paragraphs that mention television and these aren’t even being respected, which is their obligation to pay for national film production and to open funding competitions, which isn’t happening. There needs to be a marriage between film and TV.

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So, in short, what needs to happen for national films to explode?

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Money and knowledge, because in the last few years a big investment has been done in education, but we need to think what kind of education. I won’t even mention the writing problem, but the quality. Is it more important to have capable technicians or creators? There remains this idea that Mozambique is a creative country and that you don’t  need to study for it. But that’s wrong. There is a long path between the amazing stories the country has to the point of putting them on a script. And for that you need knowledge, competence and homework. It’s the university that should be on that path.

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Concerning screenings should we be considering alternative spaces?

 

Those already exist, but allow me to rephrase that question. What do you do when you want to watch a film? Will you leave your neighborhood and watch a film at Scala? With all the transportation troubles, Covid, the cost of it… You’d rather stay at home or in your neighborhood.

The classic distribution model is out of date. The television, internet, streaming, youtube and social networks markets will rise. It’s a new economy that is growing and we should be allies of those platforms. We must do it if we want to contribute significantly to the creative industries.

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Our country no longer has the national film awards…

 

Yes, I think it should exist like it happens in other art forms. I like when people watch  my films and tell me it’s good, let’s be honest. Appreciation is something positive, even if it involves some jealousy and debate but it works has a moment of film celebration.

 

How is your production company Promarte doing?

 

We are working on a radio soap opera. In film we have a project called Kutchinga (sexual purification in English) which is almost completed. It’s the strongest film I’ve done in terms of controversy, because it’s obvious no one is happy women have to go through the Kutchinga process, but if you want to fight a old and wrong tradition you must firstly understand how it works in terms of the social structure and how people react to it in their daily lives. I had no idea it was a practice so much out in the open and how many people did it. The film is almost done. I’ve got a short film as well called “Monologues with the History” based on the short story by Aldino Muianga. and there’s also “The Anchorage of Time” written with Mia Couto, is an adaptation of his book Under the Frangipani. When we decided to try and get writing and development funding for he decided to become co-author, which was great for the film and lovely for me. We already managed to secure some funding for the production but the pandemic is playing a role and we plan to film next year and release it probably in 2022.

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Have you been working with young filmmakers?

 

Right now I’m working with three. We talk about work, they send scripts. We discuss and debate and it’s been fruitful. I have always felt that obligation to pass on the knowledge and it gives me a lot of pleasure actually. But the state has an important role by deciding who and where they should put people after their graduation. Or else they’ll be unemployed “doctors” right after university. There must be state sponsored, or partly sponsored internships  for example…

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Cinema Scala resists and is a beacon. Is there an historical obligation to promote national films?

 

I do feel that obligation, but I’m also starting feel a certain contempt for those who say we must do this and that, but they don’t do themselves anything towards those goals. I’m talking about institutions, private companies and specific people. For example, Cinema Tofo was open until the hurricane destroyed everything. He did a campaign to rebuild it but didn’t manage to raise any money. A lot of people make promises, but when the time comes, they don’t show up. We’ll keep going forward, despite these obstacles for which we have to find solutions."