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As Noites Ainda Cheiram a Pólvora

The Nights Still Smell of Gunpowder
Film still from "The Nights Still Smell of Gunpowder" by Inadelso Cossa. A woman with a red beanie is sitting on the ground in front of a cabin made of sticks.
Still from THE NIGHTS STILL SMELL OF GUNPOWDER by Inadelso Cossa © Inadelso Cossa

  • Director

    Inadelso Cossa

  • Mozambique, Germany, France, Portugal, Netherlands, Norway / 2024
    93 min / Original version with English subtitles

  • Original language

    Tsonga, Portuguese

It is dark and stays dark. Through the medium of nightmares, sounds, absent images and a child’s black-and-white photo in dry foliage, the film – slowly and in fragments – explores the memory of the civil war in Mozambique, which lasted from 1977 to 1992. Archival material is carefully deployed. The fighters for independence (FRELIMO) and the rebels of the National Resistance (RENAMO) fought each other, and countless landmines claimed their victims. Filmmaker Inadelso Cossa, still a carefree child at the time, now visits his grandmother’s village. Victims, perpetrators, former rebel fighters and surviving civilians live here. Cossa asks the sound man Moises, who hears voices from the graves at dusk: “Do you want to talk about it?” The filmmaker’s grandmother is suffering from the early symptoms of Alzheimer’s and can only remember at night. A former rebel numbs himself with alcohol and continues the battles in his soul. The echoes of horror are omnipresent. Against the backdrop of Mozambique’s now taboo civil war history, As noites ainda cheiram á pÓlvora develops a sensory approach to ghosts, to missing and fictitious memories. (Madeleine Bernstorff)

Inadelso Cossa, Mozambican filmmaker and member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences member since 2020. He is the founder of 16mmFILMES. His debut documentary, A Memory in Three Acts, premiered at IDFA in 2016, winning the Jury Special Award at the Zanzibar International Film Festival in 2018.

Production Thomas Kaske, Emilie Dudognon, Inadelso Cossa. Production companies 16mm filmes (Maputo, Mozambique), IDA.IDA (Paris, France), Kaske Film (Berlin, Germany). Director Inadelso Cossa. Screenplay Inadelso Cossa. Cinematography Inadelso Cossa. Editing Tomás Baltazar, Inadelso Cossa. Sound design Taco Drijfhout. Sound Moises Langa. Co-producer Frank Hoeve, António Câmara Manuel, Elisa Fernanda Pirir, Ragna N. Midtgard, Birk Hanum. Co-production DuplaCena, BALDR Film, STÆR, Filmreaktor. With Inadelso Cossa, Maria Estevão, Moises Langa, Macuacua, Zalina, Elisa.

World sales Syndicado Film Sales

Films: 2016: Uma memória em três atos / A Memory in Three Acts (documentary). 2020: Karingana – The Dead Tell No Tales (short film). 2024: As Noites Ainda Cheiram a Pólvora / The Nights Still Smell of Gunpowder (documentary).

Bonus Material

Director’s Statement and Interview

  • Film still from "The Nights Still Smell of Gunpowder" by Inadelso Cossa. It shows two men in a dark door frame.

    Director’s Statement

    Inadelso Cossa about filming against the erasure of memory

  • Film still from "The Nights Still Smell of Gunpowder" by Inadelso Cossa. A woman with a red beanie is sitting on the ground in front of a cabin made of sticks.

    Interview

    Asja Makarević and Barbara Wurm speak with Inadelso Cossa about AS NOITES AINDA CHEIRAM A PÓLVORA

Funded by:

  • Logo Minister of State for Culture and the Media
  • Logo des Programms NeuStart Kultur