Annecy’s ‘Nayola’ Explores the Struggles of Three Generations of Women in Angola
variety.comMartin Dale ContributorJosé Miguel Ribeiro’s feature debut “Nayola,” one of two Portuguese full-length animation pics screening at Annecy Animation Film Festival, portrays the fate of a grandmother, a mother and her daughter – Lelena, Nayola and Yara – in the aftermath of the Angolan civil war.Nayola searches for her husband, Ekumbi, who went missing during the war.
She abandons her daughter, Yara, at the age of only two, who is then brought up by her grandmother, Lelena. By 2011, she has become a rebellious teenage rapper.The pic jumps back and forth between 1995 and 2011, moving between richly saturated images of the Angolan landscape and grim, gray-toned images of wartime destruction and urban decay, weaving together real-life settings and dreamscapes.
Based on the stage play “A Caixa Preta” (The Black Box), by Angolan playwright José Eduardo Agualusa and Mozambican novelist Mia Couto, the script was penned by Ribeiro’s long-time collaborator Virgilio Almeida.The €3.2 million ($3.37 million) pic is a coproduction between Ribeiro’s Praça Filmes in Portugal, Belgium’s S.O.I.L.
and Luna Blue, France’s JPL Films and the Netherlands’ Il Luster. International sales are repped by Urban Sales. It had development support from the Portuguese film institute (ICA) and from Creative Europe, a €1 million production grant from ICA, support from the Portuguese cash rebate scheme and from Eurimages.Ribeiro talked to Variety about the film.What was the initial inspiration for “Nayola”?I was introduced to this story by my friend Jorge António, who has lived in Angola for over 20 years.
Read more on variety.com
