Namibian Premiere:”Virgin Margarida”, by Licinio Azevedo, Saturday, 30 November 2013, 19h00 at Goethe-Centre Windhoek

On Saturday, 30 November 2013, 19h00, AfricAvenir presents the Namibian Premiere of the Mozambican film "Virgin Margarida“ at Goethe-Centre Windhoek.nThe Mozambican fiction film “Virgin Margarida” was directed by Licinio Azevedo, and produced by Pedro Pimenta in 2012. The film length is 90 minutes.

Adv. Bience Gawanas, Special Advisor to the Minister of Health and Social Service, former AU Commissioner for Social Affairs, and former Ombudswoman of Namibia, will attend the screening and be available for a Q-and-A session with the audience.

The screening is made possible through the financial support by the FNB Foundation.
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pryR0AE1Lw

Synopsis
Azevedo drew on the stories of real women who endured the Mozambican "re-education camps" for this dramatic and inspiring elegy to the insurgent spirit of women across nations, histories and cultures.
Having directed many dramas and documentaries, including “The Last Prostitute” (1999) a documentary about the "re-education" camps for sex workers created after the independence, Azevedo’s “Virgin Margarida” is more than a follow up to this former work. Starting with the revolutionary military raiding the city streets and deporting indiscriminately sex workers, cabaret singers and paperless girls, it describes the brutal treatment inflicted upon the "to be re-educated" women in the name of revolutionary values, and the slow building of solidarity among women of various backgrounds.
It is an uncompromised comment upon the men who are now ruling Mozambique. nThe film focuses on Margarida (Sumeia Maculuva), an earnest sixteen-year-old country girl picked up because she did not have identification papers; Rosa (Iva Mugalela), a feisty prostitute; Susana (Rosa Mario), a cabaret dancer and single mother; and Maria João (Hermelinda Cimela), the camp’s commander, who fought in the war for independence and is eager to return home, marry her fiancé and start a family.
All along the film and until its tragic ending, men (male officers and leaders) prove how little the "revolutionary spirit" has changed their attitude towards women: cheated, manipulated, used or raped, women under the new regime remain little more than the servants and/or sexual objects they have always been.

The implacably dedicated woman officer in charge of the camp is herself a victim who has to live through the collapse of her ideals.
As the film progresses, the women find that they are captive to the self-righteousness of a creed that scorns individuality and subjectivity, and makes male domination an ideological prerogative. This spurs the women to defiantly band together to undertake a real revolutionary action and assert their independence from their "liberators." An evocative exposé of a little-known chapter in the contemporary history of Mozambique, “Virgin Margarida” is a dramatic and inspiring elegy to the insurgent spirit of women across nations, histories and cultures.nDate: Sat. 30 November 2013
Time: 7 p.m.
Entrance: 30,- N$
Venue: Goethe-Centre, Auditorium nThe film series African Perspectives is supported by the FNB Foundation, the Finnish Embassy in Namibia, WhatsOnWindhoek, and the Goethe-Centre Windhoek.n© Copyright AfricAvenir 2013