New Yorkers are in for a profound experience from director Jeremy Xido, whose feature documentary, Death Metal Angola, will screen at DOC NYC, New York’s premier documentary festival, which returns for its 4th year, from November 14-21, to the IFC Center in Greenwich Village and Chelsea’s SVA Theatre.
The short story, goes…
Following nearly 40 years of unrelenting war, peace and reconstruction are slowly arriving to Angola. Damaged first by the war for independence from Portugal, Angola was then ripped apart by a devastating civil war that orphaned thousands of children. Huambo, Angola’s second largest city, finds 55 of these children in the Okutiuka orphanage under the care of Sonia Ferreira. Sonia’s boyfriend, Wilker Flores, is a death metal guitarist who uses sounds and rhythms of this hardcore music as a path to healing. Or, as Sonia says, “to clear out the debris from all these years of war.”
The feature documentary follows Wilker and Sonia’s attempts to stage Angola’s first-ever national rock concert, bringing together members from different strands of the Angolan hardcore scene from different provinces, as it all unfolds in fits and starts against the bombed out and mined backdrop of the formerly stately Huambo.
The lauded doc continues to travel the international film festival circuit, and will next screen, as noted above, at DOC NYC next month.
For the festival’s full schedule, including ticket info, click HERE.
In the meantime, trailer below:
