Step Up, Mollywood

I know that you've heard of Hollywood. Everyone has heard of Hollywood.

And if you're a real film aficionado, you may even have heard of Bollywood, India's answer to Hollywood.

Now, let me introduce you to the new kid on the block, which I'll dub Mollywood. Hollywood Mozambique. One of the many positive things that are happening in Mozambique. Probably the first movies that come to mind are Blood Diamond (2006, Leonardo DiCaprio) and previously, Ali (2001, Will Smith), but those aren't Mollywood. They're just the product of Hollywood looking for inexpensive and authentic-looking sets in Maputo.

This afternoon, Mario took me to the Theatro Gil Vicente on Avenida Samora Machel in search of the real Mollywood, to catch the matinee viewing of "O Jardim do outro Homem" (Another Man's Garden). Yes, Mollywood, though smaller than most movie-producing meccas, exists. Mollywood even writes, directs and produces its own films. For this eighty-minutes- plus-intermission, Mollywood was thriving.

No matter that the theatre, a cavernous and aging Portuguese monstrosity designed for stage plays not shown in decades, had all of six people in it. Perhaps the price was a deterrent, though at about $1.50 per ticket for the Monday matinee, I would have imagined that a few more people would have bitten. Maybe the after-dinner crowd is bigger, but I doubt big enough to fill the theatre's thousand or more seats.

The film that Mollywood projected on the screen was categorically not Hollywood. There were no explosions, despite the country's infamy with landmines. And I could have seen more guns standing on the theatre's steps looking out towards the street than I saw captured on film (the latter featured a grand total of zero).

Instead, the film showed a culturally-accurate portrayal of the obstacles that a teenaged Mozambican girl faces in her quest to qualify for university and become a medical doctor. The film addresses many of this country's biggest issues: HIV/AIDS, corruption and coercion, petty theft, and poverty.

Its title, reflecting persisting gender discrimination, is a derivative of the traditional sentiment in Mozambique that, "sending a girl to school is like watering another man's garden." Paying to educate a daughter is useless because her lot in life will be restricted to raising and feeding the children of someone else's son.

At several moments in the film, I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. After one of the plot's critical moments, showing a male teacher advancing on a student in exchange for the promise of better grades, I thought of Captain Jack Sparrow. "This is as real as Pirates of the Caribbean," I asked with my eyes, not uttering a word. It's just a movie, right?

"It's very real," Mario assured me, understanding my silent discomfort. Mollywood punches with the strength of reality, producing socially-charged and relevant cinema that would be dismissed as drab documentary by Hollywood's red carpet crowd.

Mario felt encouraged by the film's message of strength in the face of adversity. I wasn't encouraged so much as speechless and contemplative. Sometimes reality is hard to swallow.