"Nshajo (The Game)"
Portugal - France, 2010, DV-CAM, 8'
Screened in the following festivals and exhibitions:
// “The Screening Cabinet”, exhibition commissioned by Miguelangelo Veiga, presented at Espaço Cultural Transforma (Torres Vedras) and Galeria Cabine (Lisbon), 2010.
// DocuAdventure section of Festival Documenta Madrid, 2011.
// Dockanema Film Festival, Maputo, 2011.
// DocLisboa Film Festival, Lisbon, 2011.
// "Hantologie des Colonies”, serie of screenings comissioned by Normal / Vincent Meessen and produced by Espace Khiasma, Paris, 2011.
// Musée du Quai Branly, during the conference “Les voies de la révolte. Cinéma, images et révolutions dans les années 1960-70”, Paris, 2011.
// Picknick Festival, Santander, 2011.
// Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin/Madrid (video library).
// Proyector Festival Internacional de Videoarte, Madrid, 2011.
Synopsis: Between 1957 and 1960, anthropologist Jorge Dias, one of the main figures of Portuguese colonial ethnography and Luso-Tropicalist Movement, conducted three field studies in the Macondes Plateau, in Northern Mozambique. The material he gathered would be compiled in the extensive monograph “Os Macondes de Moçambique” (1964-70), one of Portuguese anthropology’s most fundamental works. In 1960, during the fourth expedition to Mozambique, Jorge Dias stayed for some days in my family’s house, in Mucojo, where my grandfather was the post administrator.
“Nshajo (The Game)” articulates the narration of a prosaic episode of Jorge Dias’ stay in Mucojo with an attempt of visual reflection on anthropological representation and the processes of empirical observation, imitation, and acculturation. Continuity lines are delineated between systems of representation and paroxysmal imaginaries through the combination of a fake anthropological documentary with familiar archive footage from Mozambique during Portuguese colonialism.
Nshajo (O Jogo) / Nshajo (The Game) - teaser
TECHNICAL DATA
Direction, screenplay and production: Raquel Schefer
Photography and sound design: Jorge Flores Velasco
Edition: Jorge Flores Velasco, Raquel Schefer
Archive images: José Manuel Monteiro
Text: Maria Delfina Monteiro;
Viegas, Guerreiros Manuel, “Os Macondes de Moçambique”, IV tome, ed. by
Jorge Dias and Margot Dias, Lisbon, Junta de Investigação do Ultramar, 1966.
Voice-over: Maria Delfina Monteiro, Raquel Schefer
Film development: Andec FilmTechnik