Inadelso Cossa: The Nights Still Smell of Gunpowder
Inadelso Cossa, The Nights Still Smell of Gunpowder, 2024. Courtesy of the artist and Syndicado.
Award-winning Mozambican filmmaker Inadelso Cossa presents his stunning second feature, a ghost story rooted in Mozambique's deadly civil war which raged from 1977 to 1992. Cossa returns to his grandmother’s village where former rebels now live among surviving civilians, their shared wounds suppressed by official narratives. Shot largely in the enveloping darkness of night, he interweaves his grandmother’s fragmented memories with sequences of villagers reenacting harrowing events, mixing performance, personal history, and sensory ethnography to capture the feeling of a place haunted by undead traumas.
2024, Inadelso Cossa, Mozambique, DCP
Tsonga and Portuguese with English subtitles
93 minutes followed by a conversation with the artist
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Inadelso Cossa is a Mozambican filmmaker and producer. His work explores contemporary African history—colonialism, independence movements, civil wars, and post-colonial politics and culture—through the experience of Mozambique, often focusing on unofficial and suppressed narratives. Cossa refers to his documentary approach as “acts of memory.” His shorts and features have screened at film festivals throughout Europe, Africa, and South America and he has received numerous grants and awards for his projects, including from the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam Bertha Fund and the Marrakech International Film Festival’s Atlas Workshops, among many others. His debut documentary feature won the Jury Special Award at the Zanzibar International Film Festival in 2018; his second feature won the Special Jury prize at the 2024 Olhar de Cinema – Quritiba International Film Festival. In addition to his filmmaking, he has served on film festival juries and programming committees. He is the founder of 16mmFILMES, an independent film and television company based in Maputo, Mozambique. Cossa has been a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences since 2020.
ACCESSIBILITY
Conversations at the Edge events have live captions (CART). The Gene Siskel Film Center is fully ADA accessible and its theaters are equipped with hearing loops. For other accessibility requests, please visit saic.edu/access or write cate@saic.edu
TICKETS
$13 General public
$8 Students & seniors
$6.50 Film Center members
$5 SAIC staff & faculty & AIC staff
FREE for SAIC students with a valid ID
All CATE programs are free for SAIC students. Unless otherwise noted, SAIC student tickets are released five days prior to showtime. Tickets must be picked up in person from the Gene Siskel Film Center box office. A student ID is required.
RESOURCE GUIDES
Conversations at the Edge’s resource guides contain articles, interviews, and other material related to upcoming artists and events. Available here.