Woya hayi mawe: where are you going to? These lyrics echo Mozambican musician Lenna Bahule’s explorations both in her birthplace - Maputo - and in her adopted home of São Paulo. From the stage to the urban outskirts, we see how Lenna deals with the difficulties of being a black female musician in both Brazil and Mozambique. The artistic world of São Paulo demands her Africanity, her African references, her roots. Yet in Mozambique Lenna is now known for her success in Brazil: she brings some of Brazil’s cultural power to the stage in Maputo. Returning to Mozambique, she rediscovers her home country with new eyes. Lenna meets and works with an inspirational new generation of Maputo-based musicians, who she involves in the production of a show in Maputo’s Centro Cultural Franco-Moçambicano. From this major cultural institution, to her grandmother’s farm and a social project in Maputo’s outskirts, we see Lenna and the Maputo artivists investigating Mozambique’s traditional and popular musics and discovering new musical and activist routes. Navigating between activism and the stage, between an imagined ‘Africa’ that Brazil demands of her, and a Brazilian cosmopolitanism São Paulo has given her, Lenna discovers - in a traditional Chopi song that travels - that her musical roots were even more powerful than she imagined.
Direction, photography and research: Jasper Chalcraft e Rose Satiko Hikiji
Editing, colour: Ricardo Dionisio
Direct Sound: Jasper Chalcraft
Additional Direct Sound: Rose Satiko Hikiji, Maria Carolina Botinhon de Campos, Danilo J. de Oliveira, Luiza Fernandes Coelho, Ricardo Dionisio, Klaus Wernet
Additional cameras: Ricardo Dionisio, Danilo J. de Oliveira, Marina Decourt
Mixing and Mastering: Jean Nands, Ewelter Rocha
Mixing Nômades Sesc São Paulo: Danilo Moraes
Production: Laboratório de Imagem e Som em Antropologia (LISA-USP)
Translation (English version): Jasper Chalcraft
Translation (italiano): Anna Beatriz Geronimi Benine
Revision (italiano): Heloisa Barbati
Research project
“Being/Becoming African in Brazil: migrating musics and heritages” (Fapesp grants 2016/05318-7, 2016/06840-9 and 2016/24445-0)
Support
This film is part of the project Being/Becoming African in Brazil: migrating musics and heritages (grants 2016/04404-7 and 2016/06840-9 São Paulo Research Foundation - FAPESP).
This study is part of the Afrosampas collection and was financed in part by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - Brasil (CAPES) - Finance Code 001
Research groups
Pesquisas em Antropologia Musical (PAM)
Grupo de Antropologia Visual (GRAVI-USP)
Cast (in order of appearance)
Lenna Bahule
CLARIANAS Naloana Lima e Martinha Soares
NÔMADES (SÃO PAULO) Vinicius Costa, Erik Ekstrom, Edu Sattajah, Lilian Rocha, Luana Baptista, Victoria dos Santos, Camila Ronza
BANDA NÔMADES (SÃO PAULO) Sérgio Reze, Ari Colares, João Taubkin
Danilo Moraes
GUMBOOT Rubens Oliveira, Washington Gabriel, Pamela Cristina, Munique Mendes, Danilo Nonato, Samira Marana Diego Henrique, Silvana de Jesus
BAHULE QUARTET Lenna Bahule, Gabriel Draetta, Ed Woiski, Kiko Woiski
NÔMADES (MAPUTO) Rukan, Suke Tanni, Abençoada Mondlane, Albertina Ngulela
BANDA NÔMADES (MAPUTO) May Mbira, Nelson, Stelio Zoé, Tony Chabuca, Cheny Wa Gune
GRUPO HODI Elias Manhiça, Augusto Manhiça, Fernando Sitoe, Vasco Sitoe
Mingas (Elisa Domingas Salatiel Jamisse)
Bob Moway
Honorable Mention in the feature film category, in the Ana Maria Galano award, at the 45th ANPOCS Annual Meeting.