Nayola

In 1995, Nayola leaves her mother and child to go in search of her husband. Believing in a better future, he went off to fight in the civil war as a guerrilla and has since been presumed missing. As Nayola journeys for several years through the ravaged regions of Angola, she confronts the horrors of war at first hand. Initially trying to avoid the violence as much as possible, external circumstances increasingly force her to commit brutal acts herself.

Sixteen years after Nayola’s departure, the civil war has long since ended, but the authoritarian government that emerged from it continues to suppress any criticism of the system. Nayola’s daughter Yara, now a young woman, denounces the social injustices in the country as a musician and provokes the wrath of the police with her songs. Yara, who grew up with her grandmother and still lives with her, no longer believes she will ever see her parents again. Until one night a mysterious person disguised as a jackal breaks into her house.

Using the touching fate of three generations of the same family, “Nayola” sheds light on the deep rifts the Angolan civil war left in the population. The film is not concerned with assigning blame, but rather with the question of how the national trauma can be overcome. Without wanting to gloss over the dark history, but with an unshakeable belief in the human urge for love and freedom, award-winning director José Miguel Ribeiro depicts a multi-layered portrait of society. The sagas of Angola served as his reference for the poignant animation, whose mystical charisma he pays tribute to in dream sequences with expressionist overtones. (Mischa Haberthür)