This page contains links to articles, interviews, and videos that can be incorporated into your syllabus in preparation for an event or afterward for post-event discussion and research. Go to saic.edu/cate for detailed event information.
Inadelso Cossa: A Memory in Three Acts
Wednesday, October 30, 6:00 p.m. CT
Gene Siskel Film Center, 164 N. State St.
Inadelso Cossa: The Nights Still Smell of Gunpowder
Thursday, October 31 at 6:00 p.m. CT
Gene Siskel Film Center, 164 N. State St.
Please note that All CATE events will have real-time captioning (CART). Hearing loops, wheelchair seating, and companion seating are also available at the Gene Siskel Film Center. For other accessibility requests, please visit saic.edu/access or write cate@saic.edu
A Memory in Three Acts
In a rare US appearance, Mozambican filmmaker Inadelso Cossa presents his powerful first feature, a film that seeks to redress the gaps and silences in official accounts of Mozambique’s brutal “People’s War” for independence from Portugal (1964–75). Cossa delves into the stories of civilian resistance fighters, political prisoners, and the descendants of Portuguese secret agents, who return to sites of violence to testify about the atrocities that occurred there. Together with archival footage and meticulous cinematography, the film bears witness to the country’s ongoing colonial trauma.
The Nights Still Smell of Gunpowder
Award-winning Mozambican filmmaker Inadelso Cossa presents his stunning second feature,a ghost story rooted in Mozambique's deadly civil war which raged from 1977 to 1992. Cossa returns to his grandmother’s village where former rebels now live among surviving civilians, their shared wounds suppressed by official narratives. Shot largely in the enveloping darkness of night, he interweaves his grandmother’s fragmented memories with sequences of villagers reenacting harrowing events, mixing performance, personal history, and sensory ethnography to capture the feeling of a place haunted by undead traumas.
Inadelso Cossa is a Mozambican filmmaker and producer. His work explores contemporary African history—colonialism, independence movements, civil wars, and post-colonial politics and culture—through the experience of Mozambique, often focussing on unofficial and suppressed narratives. Cossa refers to his documentary approach as “acts of memory.” His shorts and features have screened at film festivals throughout Europe, Africa, and South America and he has received numerous grants and awards for his projects, including from the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam’s Bertha Fund and the Marrakech International Film Festival’s Atlas Workshops, among many others. His debut documentary feature won the Jury Special Award at the Zanzibar International Film Festival in 2018; his second feature won the Special Jury prize at Olhar de Cinema – Quritiba International Film Festival. In addition to his filmmaking, he has served on film festival juries and programming committees. He is the founder of 16mmFILMES, an independent film and television company based in Maputo. Cossa has been a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences since 2020.
The Nights Still Smell of Gunpowder [Article]
Elena Lazic | CineEuropa | February 21, 2024
Inadelso Cossa on The Nights Still Smell of Gunpowder [Interview]
Jan Tracz | The Upcoming | February 20, 2024
Questioning the Sensorial: Asja Makarević and Barbara Wurm in Conversation with Inadelso Cossa [Interview]
Asja Makarević and Barbara Wurm | Berlin International Film Festival | February 2024
Cinema, Paths, and Dynamics of Mozambican Co-Productions: An Exploratory Look [Article]
Alice Dutra Balbe, Elaine Trindade, Isabel Macedo | Vista | January - June 2021
Cinema in Mozambique: New Tendencies in a Complex Mediascape [Article]*
Ute Fendler | Critical Interventions: Journal of African Art History and Culture | August 21, 2014
*This is a library resource that requires ARTIC login
Cinema on the Cultural Front: Film-Making and the Mozambican Revolution [Article]*
Ros Gray | Journal of African Cinemas | March 2012
*This is a library resource that requires ARTIC login
Kuxa Kanema: The Birth of Cinema [Film]*
Margarida Cardoso | Icarus Films | 2018
*This is a library resource that requires ARTIC login
Conversations at the Edge Lecture Recordings
Conversation at the Edge video recordings (2016–present.) Available with SAIC login credentials.