Resonance Spiral. 2024. Portugal/Guinea-Bissau/Germany. Directed by Filipa César, Marinho de Pina. North American premiere. In Guinea-Bissau Creole, Cape Verdean Creole, French, Portuguese; English subtitles. 92 min.
In September 2022, Mediateca Onshore was inaugurated in Malafo, a village in Guinea-Bissau, marking a half-century of Guinean cinema production. Resonance Spiral documents the construction of this community screening space—but what’s being built is so much more. Part of a decade-long project instigated by filmmakers and artists Filipa César, Sana na N’Hada, and Marinho de Pina, among others, the building is a site for preserving Guinean militant cinema histories, a portal for making audiovisual archives from of the country’s revolutionary movement accessible to the public. The film follows workshops underway in the multiuse structure, as women from an agricultural workers’ association nearby listen to reels of Amílcar Cabral advocating for women’s liberation circa 1970, finding repose as they commune with ancestral voices from the past. Meanwhile, the filmmakers surface the tensions they see at play in their own project, and turn the tables on documentary norms. Whether conversing with neighboring mangroves or immersed in moving-image reverie, Resonance Spiral is a ravishing, rigorous experiment in crafting community through cinema.