Resonance Spiral

Forum 2024

“Nothing falls from the sky apart from rain,” says Amílcar Cabral in a tape recording from 1970. The women of the Satna Fai agricultural workers’ collective listen to this historical document stemming from the politician, poet and theoretician; they rest as Cabral demands equality between the sexes, which he sees as essential for shared progress. The setting is the Abotcha building in Malafo, a traditional Balanta village in Guinea-Bissau, which has housed the Mediateca Onshore since 2023. Together with filmmaker Sana na N’Hada and others, since 2011 director Filipa César has been working on reconstructing the audiovisual memory of the country’s liberation movement and making it accessible to the public; artist Marinho de Pina has been involved since 2017. In Resonance Spiral, César and de Pina document the construction of the Abotcha and the agro-poetic practices that take place there, showing dialogues between archive, performing arts and community. At the same time, they grapple with their own position, sharing insights, despairs – and the mud of the mangroves.

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by Filipa César, Marinho de Pina
with Bedan na Onça, Bidan Quelenque, Cristina Mendes, Mû Mbana, Nsai Ndiba, Nsa na Tchuto, Pereira na Onça, Pedro na Onça, Sancho Silva, Sana na N’Hada, Satna Fai, Sónia Vaz Borges, Vanessa Fernandes, Community of Malafo Portugal / Guinea-Bissau / Germany 2024 Guinea-Bissau Creole, Cape Verdean Creole, French, Portuguese 92’ Colour World premiere | Documentary form

With

Bedan na Onça
Bidan Quelenque
Cristina Mendes
Mû Mbana
Nsai Ndiba
Nsa na Tchuto
Pereira na Onça
Pedro na Onça
Sancho Silva
Sana na N’Hada
Satna Fai
Sónia Vaz Borges
Vanessa Fernandes
Community of Malafo

Crew

Directors	Filipa César, Marinho de Pina
Screenplay	Sana na N’Hada, Regina Guimarães
Cinematography	Jenny Lou Ziegel
Editing	Filipa César
Sound Design	João Polido Gomes
Music	Mû Mbana, Demba Djabaté, Marinho de Pina, João Polido Gomes
Producers	Anže Peršin, Filipa César
Executive Producer	Suleimane Biai

Produced by

Stenar Projects

Photos

Filipa César

Born in Porto, Portugal in 1975. She studied painting at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Porto and at the Faculdade de Belas Artes of the University of Lisbon. In 2008, she completed an MA in art in context at Berlin University of the Arts. Since 2011, she has been researching the origins of the cinema of the African Liberation Movement in Guinea-Bissau as a laboratory of decolonising epistemologies. She premiered her first feature-length film Spell Reel at the Forum in 2017, while Quantum Creole was exhibited at Forum Expanded in 2020. She lives and works in Berlin.

Filmography

2007 Rapport; 16 min. · Allee der Kosmonauten; 8 min. 2008 Le passeur; 34 min. 2009 The Four Chambered Heart; 29 min. 2010 Insert; 10 min. · Memograma; 40 min. · Porto, 1975; 10 min. 2011 The Embassy; 7 min. 2012 Cuba; 10 min., Forum Expanded 2013 · Cacheu; 10 min. 2013 Conakry; 10 min. 2014 Mined Soil; 32 min. 2015 Transmission from the Liberated Zones; 30 min., Forum Expanded 2016 2017 Spell Reel; 96 min., Forum 2017 2018 Sunstone; short documentary 2020 Quantum Creole; short documentary 2024 Resonance Spiral; documentary

Bio- & filmography as of Berlinale 2024

Marinho de Pina

Filmmaker, transdisciplinary artist, performer, poet, musician and writer. He is currently a research assistant at the Centre for Studies on Socioeconomic Change and Territory in Lisbon doing his PhD on “Sacred Spaces in Bissau”. Since 2017, he has been working on Mediateca Abotcha in Guinea-Bissau with Filipa Cesár, Sana na N’Hada and Suleimane Biai, a programme for the cultural creation of dreams and utopias with the local community there.

Filmography

2024 Resonance Spiral; documentary

Bio- & filmography as of Berlinale 2024