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Our Madness

Forum 2018
© Sabine Lancelin
The voiceover says at the outset that a madhouse can be different things at different times: slavery, civil war, a puppet regime. Today, it’s a psychiatric hospital in Maputo, bright walls without, dark corridors within, both accentuated by the crisp black and white. Ernania is a patient there, she coaxes music from her bed so enchanting it could carry you away. When the gate is left open one day, she seizes her chance and a journey begins. But the path doesn’t proceed from A to B, but rather from one beguiling location to another, each flowing into the next with logic of a trance: a recording studio, a cinema full of goats, a boat on a tilt on the mudflats. Ernania was always looking for her husband and son and finds them with ease, but somehow they disappear again at will, just like the other strange objects she stumbles across, the aeroplane fashioned from a hospital bed or the statue of wire. When Ernania and her son stare at the sun, they see the whole continent before them, a terrain, like the film, as rich in references and allusions as a dream. The voiceover also says escape lies in dreams, but that was in the past. Today, it’s in your dreams that they sense you’re there.
by João Viana (Written and Directed by)
with Ernania Rainha, Bernardo Guiamba, Hanic Corio, Rosa Mario, Emerson Sanjane, Francisco Muxanga, Mamadu Baio, Janete Mutemba, Jessica Laimo, Francisco Manjate Mozambique / Guinea-Bissau / Qatar / Portugal / France 2018 Xitswa, Swahili 90' Colour & Black/White World premiere

With

  • Ernania Rainha (Lucy)
  • Bernardo Guiamba (Pack)
  • Hanic Corio (Boy)
  • Rosa Mario (Priest)
  • Emerson Sanjane (Nurse 1)
  • Francisco Muxanga (Bad Guy)
  • Mamadu Baio (International Star)
  • Janete Mutemba (Mad Girl 1)
  • Jessica Laimo (Mad Girl 2)
  • Francisco Manjate (Nurse 2)

Crew

Written and Directed by João Viana
Cinematography Sabine Lancelin
Editing Edgar Feldman
Music Pedro Carneiro
Sound Design Mario Dias
Sound Gabriel Mondlane
Production Design Marieta Mandjate
Producers François D’Artemare Les Films de L'Après-Midi, João Viana Papaveronoir, Sol Carvalho Promarte, Carlos Vaz Telecine Bissau

Produced by

Les Films de L'Après-Midi

Paris, France

Papaveronoir

Lissabon, Portugal

Promarte

Maputo, Mozambique

Telecine Bissau

Bissau, Guinea-Bissau

Photos

João Viana

Born in Huambo, Angola in 1966, he first studied law and then film. He works as a director, screenwriter, producer and sound technician.

Filmography

2004 A Piscina (The Swimming Pool); 15 min., co-directed by Iana Viana 2009 Alfama; 15 min. 2013 A batalha de Tabatô (The Battle of Tabatô); 80 min., Forum 2013 · Tabatô; 13 min., Berlinale Shorts 2018 Our Madness · Madness; Berlinale Shorts

Bio- & filmography as of Berlinale 2018