Films

Communities of women across Mozambique use song, dance and stories to present a female perspective of three gendered ideological moments in their country’s history. Three co-authored musical portraits draw on a rich body of ethnographic and musical research conducted over three years by young Mozambican researchers and filmmakers, in collaboration with Anglo-Mozambican audio-visual ethnomusicologist, Karen Boswall. From traditional songs of farming, ritual and motherhood in the north of the country, to a genre from the south born out of post-civil war liberation politics, and culminating in a feminised version of a male warrior dance in response to increasing levels of gender-based violence, the country’s slow progress towards the human rights of women and girls is traced through song. Fifty years after Independence from Portugal, the next generation of Mozambican researchers and filmmakers are ensuring more women’s stories are told.