Flora Gomes. Photo by Cineport Festival
Studied cinema in Cuba. Studied with Paulin S. Vieyra cinematographyn Senegal. Then became a reporter for the ministry of Information in Guinea-Bissau. After which worked one year as an assistant for the french director Chris Marker, whose black and white science fiction short La Jetée was the inspiration for Terry Gilliam‘s Twelve Monkeys.
Completed a number of shorts. Has filmed in Cabo Verde, Portugal, France, and Guinea-Bissau. Makes a point of residing in his native Guinea-Bissau where filmmaking is only for the mad. Gomes was 38 years old when he made his first feature film Mortu Nega.
National liberation struggle, modernization, conceptualization of identity, sophicasted african feminism, environmental degradation, symbolic, aesthetically innovative, historically significant.
Death -> Quest -> Rejuvenation (Succesful or doubtful)
- in 2 first films there is doubt, the 3rd film made after the greatest horrors in contrast has no doubt, there is a clear positive message.
Gomes explores similar themes in different contexts. Rebirth. The rights of the youth. The power of the young ones. The elderly need to accept the change they were fighting for is not the change the children wanted.
