An Outpost of Progress / Posto Avançado do Progresso

Two whites, dressed in the uniform of the white colonial settler, arrive in the Congolese jungle to manage an ivory trafficking post, on behalf of a company in Lisbon. Facing the almost burlesque duo, the Congolese foreman Makola holds the post and the employees, whatever the leaders. Ivory is scarce, trading is failing, the warring tribes are threatening. Makola becomes the master of the game. The two Portuguese, not understanding anything about the natural environment or the Congolese that they rub shoulders with, go astray in the forest and the deadly madness.

By adapting the homonymous story (1897) of Joseph Conrad, the filmmaker adds sequences inspired by his research during his long stay in the Congo and by his exchanges with the Bakongos. In the night jungle, the majestic and beautifully dressed King and Queen of the Congo appear. Ancestors are witnesses of history. “Ghosts are emerging from the forest of our pent-up memory, our historical amnesia, which continues to this day.” The plasticity of reality, characters and situations is accentuated by light and colour treatments. The real and the unreal mingle, the temporalities coexist.

« Africa is a ghost that haunts my generation, born after April 25 and African independence, and marked by memory repression. But in Portugal, there are still many traces of the Salazar and colonial heritage.» Hugo Vieira da Silva