Slam Video Maputo

Few people remember that, in the mid-1970s, Jean-Luc Godard and his wife Anne-Marie Miéville headed for the recently independent country of Mozambique in order to help the young Marxist republic set up a television system. Godard wondered how television could be used in order to give the people of Mozambique a non-colonial picture of themselves.
Artist and video maker Ella Raidel was intrigued by Godard’s question and wondered in turn what picture of the population is now given by the Mozambiquan media. Raidel visits slam poets, hip-hop musicians, radio and television shows. She takes a look behind the scenes and allows the makers of music videos and glamour shows to speak out. Not by interviewing them, but by showing them at work or asking them to perform in front of the camera.
Raidel stayed for a long time in Maputo and shot and collected more material, but finally settled on a beautiful collection of shots revealing the vitality of the local (hip-hop) music culture, a culture which mixes local traditions and global influences with striking suppleness.
Her question was serious, but her observation is light-hearted and funny. In the end, the film pays homage to the cheerful and infectious popular culture of Maputo.

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