OUR LADY OF THE CHINESE SHOP

PT | EN

DRAMA | 98 MIN | 2022 | ANGOLA

PORTUGUESE & MANDARIN | 2.39:1 | 5.1

SYNOPSIS

When a chinese merchant brings to a neighbourhood of Luanda a peculiar holy plastic figure of Our Lady, a mourning mother will seek peace, a committed barber starts a new cult and a stray kid will look for revenge for his lost friend.

This bizarre urban tale will reveal a family and city facade full of resentment, greed and torment.

TECHNICAL SHEET

Written and Directed by

Producer

Executive Producers

Director of Photography

Art Direction

Assistant Director

Production Director

Main Cast

Narrator

Original Music

Editor

Sound Engineer

Camera Assistant

Mandarin Translation

Ery Claver

Jorge Cohen

Sílvio Nascimento
Elias Ribeiro

Eduardo Kropotkine

Prudênciana Hach

Kamy Lara

Rossana David

Cláudia Púcuta
David Caracol
Willi Ribeiro

Meili Li

Ismael Suama

Zeno Monyak

Oswald Juliana

Alfredo Tino

Xinyi Li

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT

I see stories in which the camera captures reality, but the camera, unlike the eyes, does not tear, the camera is a cold slave to reality, it is not allowed to dream. Our Lady of Chinese Shop means a lot to me as a filmmaker, not just because it's my first feature film but also it defines and condenses an impulse that I have traced in my last short films: an allegory about power.

The relationship I have established with aspects of the human condition has been a determining experience for my construction as a filmmaker. The film claims in its context themes such as desires for revenge, secrets, servitude, abuse, violence, death, ghosts, politics, religious faith, it is through the power that these bases are manifested.

One day, at any time in Luanda, I see a container full of garbage. Around it, a group of jostling youths hover around, dust from a black car engulfs them as well. Inside the car, a full belly clutching the steering wheel. Up ahead a large billboard announcing a church, and inside it a mother prays for the memory of her daughter, a clamor muffled by the most potent cry of one or another innocent child singing, which frightens the hands of the church pastor absorbed in counting the money, change from another poor man, who, in spite of himself, rebels at home with the one he is supposed to love. The neighbor hears the screams but says: 'To finish building my house, the materials, I don't understand anything, it's all in Chinese'".

This film is about the times we live in. If reality allows itself this paradox, then we fictionists are sleeping and we are not even dreaming. If reality does not accept lies, it must at least know how to live with the allusions, and allude, or else imitate reality.

“This film portrays, in a very raw way, the reality of various characters that we may encounter in our daily lives.”

— KAMY LARA - Assistant Director

THE MAKING OF

This great arena, without firm foundations, weak and unfinished, the Tourada, is the vulnerability of power evidenced. The surreal building is one of eight bullrings built in Africa in colonial times, then occupied by iconic shows. Today, carved by time, it houses beauty salons, car washes, and bars, always awaiting demolition or revitalization, planned and promised for years by the state.

The film, which started recording in the middle of the 2020 pandemic and purposely chose to film with only two actors and a reduced crew, had its biggest production challenge in the recordings of the Tourada, gathering more than a hundred people to reoccupy the space with Culture.

Besides the cast, the scenes that reenact a neighborhood rally, directed by the political cream of the crop and followed by a bizarre banquet, also included special participations. Actors who represent other groups and other generations of Angolan art and culture, who inspire to do collectively. Filming at the Tourada had its part of celebration, of being together, and of making live cinema. It was not just creating an event for the recording, but having fun at the event itself and celebrating cinema and national culture.

Our Lady of the Chinese Shop was filmed entirely in Luanda, Angola's complex capital city, with many layers, various timelines, and infinite ways of living. So is the film, which presents different looks at the same object. A film in which a large arena matters as much as the hallway of the house, faith and power meet, the silence of conversation joins the anguished sound of water, the heat of the sun connects to neon light, and a poet who writes in Mandarin.

Bessa and Domingas' sense of loss hangs like a funeral cloud over them and their house. Zoyo takes us out into the streets, in the restless search for his faithful friend. It is the saint, this object of miracles promised by the merchant 张伟 Zhang Wei, who unravels characters and events, and who leads to the gaze of a dulled society, with a longing for what might have been and subject to constant political and religious manipulations.

“To do Art Direction in Angola, with the resources we have, is to open a door to the challenge but also to the will to want to do, this is how it was to dress the Tourada.”

— PRUDÊNCIANA HACH - Art Director