THIS IS NOT A BURIAL, IT’S A RESURRECTION

Mantoa (Mary Twala Mhlongo) is eighty and has outlived her husband and her children. When news of her last son’s death reaches her mountain village in Lesotho, she prepares her own death: she arranges the funeral, bids farewell to her belongings and wants to lie beside her own in the cemetery. Then the government announces that the valley will be flooded for a reservoir; the village is to be resettled, the graves submerged. Mantoa refuses. Her grief turns into resistance, and the village begins to join her. In “This Is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection” (Lesotho 2019), Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese tells of a woman who postpones death because the dead need her.

The film is held in a narrow aspect ratio, in painted landscapes and long takes, with a narrator accompanied by the lesiba guiding the story. It premiered in 2019 at the Venice Film Festival; it was Lesotho’s first submission for the Oscar and one of Mary Twala Mhlongo’s last roles. The film was shown at Around the World in 14 Films in Berlin in 2020.

Shown at the 2020 edition of Around the World in 14 Films.

All films 2020 · Film Archive