Nayola

Portuguese filmmaker José Miguel Ribeiro tells an emotional intergenerational story about three women from the same family in Angola's deadly civil war.

Based on the play “A Caixa Preta” (The Black Box) by Angolan playwright José Eduardo Agualusa and Mozambican novelist Mia Cauto, Nayola interweaves past and present, depicting two eras - one during the violent civil war spanning decades, and one in 2011 in an Angola still significantly scarred by its bloody conflict.

Nayola (voiced by Elisângela Kadina Rita), a young mother, makes the impossible decision to leave her two-year-old daughter, Yara, to search for her husband, missing in battle. Years later, Yara (Feliciana Délcia Guia) is a teenager who channels her anger at the world into combative rap; her grandmother Lelena (Vitória Adelino Dias Soares), heavy with accumulated grief, watches anxiously as the authorities train their sights on her.

The film is a striking combination of gripping storytelling and intense 2D animated visualization. The film has received several awards in international animation festivals and premiered at the Annecy Film Festival.

Like the striking and vivid graphic style of the animation, Nayola is bold and thrilling storytelling which combines its forceful message about the legacy of living through war with an almost mythic quality.