Feature film
The Train of Canhoca
Comboio da Canhoca
Synopsis
In 1957, in Malanje, Njololo, a houseman whose wife has been raped by a corporal, rebels and undergoes the discipline of the Portuguese political police. The repression spreads: dozens of respected men are arrested and sent towards Luanda, locked in a goods wagon that the train leaves for several days in the full sun at Canhoca station. Their conversations and memories make up a mosaic of Angolan society in the late fifties.
Context
The film is based on a real event, which occurred shortly before the start of the colonial war. Reported as completed in 1989, it was not released in Angola until 2004, after a delay of some fifteen years attributed to political reasons; the Portuguese Cinematheque supposes a shoot that was interrupted and then resumed, and a public fund created in 2002 helped to finish it. It is co-produced by companies from France, Portugal, Angola, Tunisia and Morocco, and the Institut français has distributed it since 2016 in its collection devoted to the cinemas of Africa.
Who it is for
A fiction feature film of about an hour and a half, in Portuguese, with music by the singer Bonga.
Prizes and reception
First feature film by its director, presented by the Portuguese Cinematheque, which states that it was never released in cinemas in Portugal.
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