IF VAGINA HAD A TEETH: THE SHONA RAINMAKING CEREMONY IN WESTERN MOZAMBIQUE
Estonia/Norway, 2009, 57 min
Liivo Niglas, Frode Storaas
29.01.2010 19:55
„Ritual reversals“ or „ritual of rebellion“ are concepts used for mock rituals performend in Southern and Eastern Africa. During fertility rituals, like rain making ceremonies, women in their songs and dances demonstrate obscene behaviour while they behave like men. These are secret performance open strictly for eldery men and women. Still, we were invited to record the rain making ceremony in the land of Chief Chassuka, Manika Province in Mozambique in order to document the ritual for the younger generations. These rituals are a fading tradition probably due to the special character of the songs and dances.
Language of dialogues: Shona language, English
Language of subtitles: English
Country Clubs or ‘Countries’ are gated communities on the outskirts of Argentina’s cities. Under the watchful eye of the private security firms hired to protect them, the clubs act as an oasis of calm for the Argentine rich. In such an environment people in the ‘Countries’ enjoy an apparently idyllic, safe existence surrounded by tennis courts, football fields, golf courses, polo pitches, shopping facilities and sometimes even private schools. Yet this film shows the dilemma and the inner-struggle of those who were born into a privileged position in a state that fails to provide social amenities, justice or peace for the majority of its people.
In the middle of the 20th century a numerous group of Moravian reformed evangelicals from the surroundings of Kloubouky u Brna came to the area of Serbien Banat in Vojvodina. One-and-half-century-lasting existence of the reformed charge brought to its members much suffering borne by a process of big history stretching up to the presence. At the beginning of the 21st century the community of Czech speaking reformed evangelicals is dwelling at the verge of determination as the source of belief has been abandoned by the younger generation due to migration and impacts of modern era. The documentary focuses on historical turning points and fates of several charge members. In the foreground, inner latent godlines of the remaining descendants of the Moravian transmigrants appears which represents collective memory and symbolical universum – sources of preserved ethnicity. Faith, fate, presence as experienced past, experienced past as a garvestone.