Sundance Prizewinner Lemohang Mosese Muses on Exile and Belonging in Berlinale Premiere ‘Ancestral Visions of the Future’

by

Award-winning filmmaker Lemohang Mosese is back at the Berlin Film Festival, presenting his third movie titled “Visions of the Ancestors’ Future.” This highly anticipated production will make its debut on February 20th within the Berlinale Special category.

The movie, being highly personal, delves introspectively into themes of displacement and sense of home, seamlessly merging fact with fiction. It weaves together disparate stories about a boy, a market vendor, and a puppeteer to portray the filmmaker’s upbringing in the hilly African kingdom of Lesotho, as well as his experiences of exile in Berlin during his adult life.

The movie features Mosese back in the nation he previously explored, which was depicted with poignant documentary-fiction in “Mother, I Am Suffocating. This Is My Last Film About You,” that premiered at Berlinale Forum in 2019. He also reappears in his striking second production, “This Is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection,” that was awarded a special jury prize at Sundance in 2020.

As a film enthusiast, I can attest that those two films were profoundly personal endeavors for their director. He confided in EbMaster that revisiting Lesotho with his latest production was something he felt hesitant about. “That wasn’t a storyline I yearned to revisit,” he expressed. “I desired to advance, to explore new ground.

Despite the passage of time, he struggled greatly to let go of his past and the sorrow of exile persisted. Drawing upon an intense, raw, and angry emotional state, Mosese ultimately decided to revisit Lesotho, a journey that would take him back to the time when his family was forcibly displaced from their home in Hlotse.

That incident significantly changed the course of the director’s life. Even years later, Mosese was haunted by apprehensions that “the notion of returning was merely an illusion … a means to endure the deceptions of Europe.” In Berlin, he admits, he adapted, transforming into a completely different, unrecognizable individual during this process. “I transformed into anything but a Black man,” he says. “One of the reasons I felt compelled to return was because of this transformation.

His return home was filled with discomfort as he wrestled internally with conflicting elements – what he refers to as his “mosaic of adopted personas, of assumed identities.” However, when the facades were discarded, he discovered a fresh reflection of himself: a “man of multiple personas,” or simply put, a versatile individual.

Moses stands out as one of Africa’s more thought-provoking filmmakers currently, and much like his previous works, “Ancestral Visions of the Future” serves as a scathing examination of the ongoing impact of colonial exploitation and brutality on the continent. This critique encompasses not just the historical atrocities, but also the financing systems that sustain African cinema today – a paradox that is well understood by the director himself.

He expresses his dislike for having to include references to Europe in his work, but acknowledges the necessity to navigate the conflicting realities. This sentiment mirrors that of the renowned Senegalese filmmaker Ousmane Sembène who stated, ‘Europe is on the outskirts of Africa.’ In essence, he believes that his work should not revolve around Europe; instead, it should focus on the individuals he engages with and represents.

Moses is one of the founders of Mokoari Street Media, a production company and artist collective. Together with Agat Films based in Paris and Seera Films from Germany, they co-produced “Ancestral Visions”. Established in Lesotho in 2009, this venture showcases the growing camaraderie among young African filmmakers, a phenomenon that Moses terms as “our most valuable asset.

He believes that as time goes by, we’ll have the capacity to create our own movies independently, not dependent on European funding. Regarding the future of African cinema, he admits it remains uncertain, but African filmmakers are currently in a phase of development.

Read More

2025-02-15 09:51