#OnTheBigScreen: This Is Not a Burial, It's a Resurrection

This Is Not a Burial, It's a Resurrection

Written, directed and edited by Mosotho filmmaker Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese, This Is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection is myth-rooted, avant-garde southern African storytelling.

The visually striking drama, set in the mountains of Lesotho, opens with an 80-year-old widow named Mantoa (the late Mary Twala), grieving the loss of her son. Winding up her earthly affairs, she makes arrangements for her burial and prepares to die. Determined to die and be laid to rest with her family, her plans are interrupted when she discovers that the village and its cemetery will be forcibly resettled to make way for a dam reservoir. Refusing to let the dead be desecrated, she finds a new will to live and ignites a collective spirit of defiance within her community. In the final dramatic moments of her life, Mantoa’s legend is forged and made eternal.

It marks the first narrative feature film ever made by a Mosotho director. The film was shot on location in the remote mountains of Lesotho, where running water and electricity are a scarcity. Equipment, vehicles, crew and other resources were brought into the country from South Africa. The tiny crew of just 15 people endured extreme weather conditions while shooting in areas with no road access. Equipment and cast were often transported on horseback and mules. Apart from the leads, the cast is made up almost entirely of actual residents from the village where photography took place.

“I hope the audience will walk into this film with no preconceived ideas. Specifically, as an African filmmaker who set out to explore new forms of cinema,” says Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese, who is a self-taught filmmaker and visual artist from Lesotho, based in Berlin.

“I wanted to develop a new cinematic language. I was heavily inspired by Brechtian Theatre, which recognised the ability of naturalistic theatre to have great social influence, but at the expense of its capacity to arouse aesthetic pleasure. I am hopeful that Resurrection will provoke rational self-reflection, just as Brecht’s Epic Theatre encouraged a critical view of the action on the stage. I hope that each person who engages with the film will allow their own ideas around it to permeate and take on their own form.”

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