According to the production company based in Montemor-o-Novo, in the district of Évora, the film, which premiered in Annecy, France, the largest animation film festival in the world, in 2022, has already been shown in several countries and is now ‘traveling’ to Brazil.
On Wednesday, in honor of Black Consciousness Day, which is celebrated in Brazil, the feature film will be shown for free in 22 movie theaters in São Paulo, the same ones where, the following day, it will “premiere in the normal commercial circuit”, with tickets already paid for, it said.
According to Praça Filmes, more movie theaters in Brazil that will show the film will be announced “soon”, in the cities “of Salvador da Baía, Brasília, Belo Horizonte and Rio de Janeiro”.
“Nayola” is José Miguel Ribeiro’s first feature film and, since 2022, it has already won 21 awards and been shown at several film festivals around the world.
In the commercial circuit, it was shown in cinemas in Portugal, Angola, Belgium, the Netherlands and France, Praça Filmes told Lusa.
The film, an international co-production that includes Portugal, France, the Netherlands and Belgium, has a script by Virgílio Almeida, based on a play by José Eduardo Agualusa and Mia Couto.
With a budget of approximately 3.2 million euros, “Nayola” combines 2D and 3D animation and contrasts the lives of three generations of women, Lelena, Nayola and Yara.
The narrative takes place between 1995 and 2011, between the end of the Angolan civil war and the first years of peace in the country.
On September 9, 2022, on the occasion of “a special preview” of the film in Montemor-o-Novo, José Miguel Ribeiro explained to Lusa that, during the process of creating the film, he was “always very attentive to the details”.
With the aim of “not subverting” the play by Mia Couto and Agualusa, “nor making a film more for a Western audience than for an African audience”, he explained.
The film, which won a feature-length film competition by the Instituto do Cinema e do Audiovisual (ICA) and received one million euros in support, took nine years to make and spans three generations of an Angolan family.
According to José Miguel Ribeiro, what attracted him to making this film was the fact that the story is “told from a female perspective” and shows “three generations of Angolan women who lived through the colonial war, the civil war and the early days of independence and peace”.
