Mozambique / 1995 / 73mins / Documentary / Portuguese and Matsua

In the heart of drought-prone Mozambique, 10,000 people are surviving on water from just four boreholes. Licínio Azevedo’s memorable film chronicles the tragicomic dramas involved in the daily scramble for water in a rural community, from hollowing out an ancient baobab tree for storage, to traveling for days to reach a water pump only to have an officious man stop the pump for the night.

Licínio Azevedo

Licínio Azevedo (born in Porto Alegre, Brazil) is an independent filmmaker and co-founder of the Mozambican film production company, Ebano Multimedia. In 1977, he was invited by filmmaker Rui Guerra to join the National Institute of Cinema (INC) in Mozambique, and soon after embarked on a prolific career as a documentary filmmaker. He has directed and produced many award-winning documentaries, which have been screened at numerous international festivals. Tchuma Tchato (1997) won a Panda Award at the Wildscreen Festival in the UK in 1998 and was chosen as a finalist at the Third International Environmental Film Festival in Pretoria in 1997. Azevedo has produced and directed several feature films. He is also a writer and his collection of stories on the Mozambican War of Independence formed the basis of Mozambique's first full-length feature film. Virgem Margarida, his 2012 drama, won 2 awards at the Amiens International Film Festival. His 2016 drama, The Train of Salt and Sugar, was nominated for numerous awards and won Best Director at Cairo International Film Festival and the Tanit d'Or for Best Film and Narrative Feature Film at Carthage Film Festival. Learn More