Kuxa Kanema

Presented by Tiago Baptista, Head of the ANIM Department at Cinemateca Portuguesa-Museu do Cinema.

Kuxa Kanema is a Mozambican newsreel that was produced following the country’s independence from Portugal in 1975. There were two series of the newsreel (1978–79 and 1980–89), comprising more than 400 episodes and totalling over 4,000 minutes. Produced by the Instituto Nacional de Cinema, which was established in 1976, its purpose was “to capture the image of the people and return it to the people”. In line with the ideological agenda of Third Cinema, Kuxa Kanema was intended as a tool for political mobilisation to help build the new socialist state of independent Mozambique.

Restoration: Cinemateca Portuguesa-Museu do Cinema and the Instituto Nacional das Indústrias Culturais e Criativas.

This project aims to scan the entire Kuxa Kanema newsreel at Cinemateca Portuguesa-Museu do Cinema (CPMC) in Lisbon. This is being done with the participation of the archivists at the Instituto Nacional das Indústrias Culturais e Criativas (INICC), the Mozambican state institution that succeeded the Instituto Nacional do Cinema. The project is part of a broader cooperation agreement between the CPMC and the INICC, keeping with the spirit of solidarity between FIAF members. Since 2008, this included cataloguing, conservation of the INICC film collections, and training and outreach activities to promote Mozambican film heritage. Currently, CPMC is the only funder of the digitisation of the Kuxa Kanema newsreel series, but other funding opportunities are being actively researched.