A film by Jeremy Xido
Duration: 83 minutes
Thursday 22 May 2014
7pm

After a fourteen-year struggle for independence followed by more than a quarter-century of civil war, Angola is a country sunk in devastation. Hardcore death metal, thrash metal and melodic death-core; this is the music of a generation of people growing up with the failed promises of post-war Angola. They consider themselves on the brink of a new history, but are disappointed by failed attempts to reconstruct their country after the war. Through music and the truth it expresses, they are picking up the fragments and tell a compelling new story.

Two people running an orphanage have a dream. Sonia Ferriera and Wilker Flores, who run the Okutiuka orphanage in Huambo, are going to mount the first-ever national rock concert. Huambo is a symbolic site for the event. This was one of the hardest-hit cities in the war and is nowadays a desolate landscape surrounded by mine fields. War-ravaged and potentially the richest country in Africa, Angola has become the epicentre of the African hardcore music scene. Far from the nihilist connotations attached to death metal, in this context it is very much a life-affirming event. A new wave of musicians is approaching with a strong conviction of the immense potential in music for the reconstruction of their country in ruins. They are Angola’s new history, they are the young revolution and the salvage for a nation lost of identity through years of conflict.