Kuxa Kanema - O Nascimento do Cinema plot
The first cultural act of Mozambique's fledgling government after independence in 1975 was to create the National Institute of Cinema (INC). The history of the Mozambican Film Institute cannot be separated from the independence movement, embodied by President Samora Machel and FRELIMO (Mozambique Liberation Front). The INC tried, through a weekly newsreel 'Kuxa kanema', to create a national identity outside of tribal affiliation. The INC also tried to be more than propaganda, and to educate people about what it meant to be a citizen of a united independent nation. After the building burned down in 1991, it has fallen into disuse. The forgotten images that captured the first eleven years of independence - the years of the socialist revolution - are rotting, and with them the history of a period as well as the history of hope. This film examines the difficulty of a developing country to survive in a world of moving images.