At the time of independence, Mozambique lacked a national television network, so a newsreel program was the only way to reach the population through visual media. The first cultural act of President Machel's government was the establishment of theKuxa Kanema weekly 10-minute newsreel program. The newsreels were shown in Mozambique's relatively few cinemas in the 35mm format. In the rural areas, mobile units provided by the Soviet Union offered the newsreels in the 16mm format. Machel's government, however, did not finance or encourage the creation of a film industry designed strictly for entertainment value.[2]
The film also details the struggle to get INC up and running: Mozambique had no film industry or film schools (Brazilian and Cuban instructors were flown in to offer on-the-spot educational training). The resulting newsreels were shot in black-in-white because color film was too expensive.
Machel's death in an airplane crash in 1986, coupled with guerrilla attacks launched by the apartheid governments of South Africa and Rhodesia that destabilized Mozambique to the point of civil war, helped to kill this program. Many of the cinemas in the cities were damaged in the civil war, while the rural presentations of Kuxa Kanema were cancelled due to the lack of safe passage along rural roads. By the end of the conflict, national television had been established and there was no call for a theatrical newsreel presentation.[2]
^ abMcGee, Patricia B. (April 7, 2004). "Kuxa Kanema: The Birth of Cinema". libweb.lib.buffalo.edu. African Studies Association Conference Film Festival. Archived from the original on 2016-03-03. Retrieved 21 April 2024. The story of the National Institute of Cinema, the INC, is very much a metaphor of the history of the People's Republic of Mozambique itself. In 1975, the country became one of the last African colonies to gain independence.
^Hall, Phil (April 22, 2004). "KUXA KANEMA: THE BIRTH OF CINEMA". filmthreat.com. Film Threat. Filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard, oddly enough, came to the country with the plans of creating an independent television network and left when the government vetoed this grand notion.... Margarida Cardoso achieves what too many so-called documentary filmmakers fail to consider: approaching a subject with intellectualism, objectivity and professionalism. At a time when too much documentary filmmaking is polluted with vapid interviews and low-grade videography, "Kuxa Kanema: The Birth of Cinema" has the brainpower to ask the right questions and knows how to organize and present the films in question.
^"Kuxa Kanema The Birth of Cinema A Film by Margarida Cardoso". frif.com. First Run Icarus Films, New York. Archived from the original on 2008-05-08. Retrieved 2008-05-12. The first cultural act of the nascent Mozambique Government after independence in 1975 was to create the National Institute of Cinema (INC). The new president Samora Machel had a strong awareness of the power of the image, and understood he needed to use this power to build a socialist nation.....Samora Machel's death marked the end of Mozambique's cinema (the current government prefers television). There is nothing left of the INC.
Crouse, Edward (April 12, 2005). "ABC Africa. A secret history of the continent's cinema with a scar-cheeked star and a rumpled Godard". villagevoice.com. Village Voice LLC. Archived from the original on 2008-06-29. Retrieved 21 April 2024. On similar turf, Kuxa Kanema: The Birth of Cinema reaches peaks with 1978 footage of a super-rumpled Godard, popping into the newly liberated Mozambique with a "crazy" plan to put cameras into the peasants' hands. A deflationary chronicle of the nation as seen through the Manichaean, Marxist lens of its state-sponsored newsreel series (also called Kuxa Kanema), Margarida Cardoso's doc follows the gradually faltering effort of ebullient president Samora Machel to feed the nation with ideology. Review.
