The foundation of this “hip hop opera,” as described by its creator Isis Hembe, was laid with the launch of Angola’s first satellite, Angosat, in 2017, which subsequently disappeared into space.
In the film, Isis Hembe portrays the character Man Ré, an Angolan scientist who “ventures into space in search of intelligent life.”
“[There] he begins to contemplate the necessity of discovering intelligent life within ourselves,” the musician, poet, and activist explained.
“The Adventures of Angosat” initially began as a theatrical play and transitioned into film through the expertise of Marc Serena, a Catalan journalist known for award-winning documentaries like “Tchindas” and “The Writer from a Country Without Bookstores.”
Angolan artist Resem Verkron, a member of the street art collective Verkron and co-director of short films like “Lola & Mami” addressing toxic masculinity, co-directs this 34-minute film. The narrative unfolds in the streets of Cazenga (Luanda), accompanied by urban beats fused with the quissanje, a traditional Angolan musical instrument.
In a statement, Isis Hembe emphasized that the film presents a world where diversity “is considered and utilized as a resource,” reflecting Angola’s composition of various “cultures, sensibilities, and different bodies,” a product of its history.
Similar to Isis Hembe, who uses a wheelchair, the majority of the film’s cast consists of individuals with diverse abilities, including urban dancer Scott Suave, who continues to dance despite losing an arm and a leg in an accident.
Hembe contracted polio as a child but was unable to receive proper treatment due to Angola’s civil war, which ravaged the country for nearly thirty years, from 1975 to 2002.
Isis Hembe underscores that diversity “should be acknowledged in the creation of this collective space we call Angola” and hopes the film will be viewed as “a political project for the inclusion of otherness,” to which society responds positively.
The film features dialogues in multiple languages, including Angolan sign language, the primary mode of communication for two actors, Celeste Wacalenda and Domingos Malebo, and a rendition of the popular song Umbi-umbi sung in Umbundu, the most widely spoken indigenous language in Angola.
Following its world premiere on May 18 at Harlem’s Maysles Cinema during the New York African Film Festival, including a Q&A session with Isis Hembe, the film is set to arrive in Portugal on June 7 at FEStin, the Portuguese-language film festival in Lisbon showcasing productions from nine countries within the Community of Portuguese Language Countries.
The Angolan premiere is scheduled for June 20 in a free screening at Cine São Paulo, one of Luanda’s largest cinemas.
