Screenings from the archive: Nelisita (1982), an African vernacular‐language fiction set in rural southern Angola and its illuminating cinematic chain

Abstract

AbstractNelisita (Carvalho, 1982, Nelisita: narrativas nianeka), a pioneering African vernacular‐language fiction film from the early phase of Angolan cinema, inspired me to conduct a series of interconnected exercises in visual anthropology. I produced an experimental archive‐based remake (Ponte, 2016, 127 stills or 34 scenes from Nelisita) and screened it in both transnational urban contexts and an Angolan rural context reminiscent of the film's setting. This article discusses the multi‐sited chain of production and reception of this short archival remake and various localized contemporary responses to it. The article examines an evolving concern with the materiality of the archive and how both foreign urban and familiar rural audiences received the film's narrative and change of genre.