Tricontinental Film Festival New
The Portuguese word 'saudade' is a difficult one to translate exactly. It is a 'feeling of longing for something once loved, now gone, but to return in a distant future.'

- Nakul Krishna

The Portuguese word 'saudade' is a difficult one to translate exactly. It is a 'feeling of longing for something once loved, now gone, but to return in a distant future.' The word remains untranslated in the title of Richard Pakleppa's documentary of modern post-civil war Angola -- Angola saudades from the one who loves you' . A former Portuguese colony, modern Angola in Pakleppa's vision represents all the extremes of the former colonies in Asia, Africa and South America (the three continents of the Tri-continental Film Festival), as part of which package this film now travels the Indian metros.

As in every cinematic representation of the world outside the dominant North America-Western Europe axis of creative expression, the Indian viewer is struck by the familiarity of the images on offer. The shantytowns, the glaring disparities born of unshared growth, the new dissenters, all these could be from a documentary about post-90s India. Or Pakistan, or Brazil. Pakleppa ambitiously takes on Angola as one huge complex mess that its people love no less for its flaws. Faltering occasionally only because his vision is so all-encompassing, his camera slides easily into slums and 'model colonies', weaving political rhetoric with the protest of the rapper, eventually evoking the distinct image of a country whose spirit hasn't quite been crushed by its 'Civil War'.

The festival also featured Ligy Pullapally's much-lauded Sancharram (The Journey), which tells of the love between two girls. Shot in a Kerala village so lush it is difficult to believe it really exists, the film is constantly subverting the conventions of Malayalam cinema by its introduction of gender into the equation. Throughout its 107 minutes, Sancharram remains literate, intense, and beautifully shot.

Pietra Brettkelly's Beauty Will Save the World is a quirky but not entirely frivolous look at American foreign policy in the most unlikely context possible: the Miss Net World beauty pageant, in the year it is hosted by Libya where Reagan's 'mad dog' Gadaffi still rules. The filmmakers follow Teca Zendik, the 19-year old American contender for the crown, appointing her our guide to the confusing intricacies of Libyan Muslim mores, the increasing social liberalism of modern Libya, and the possibility of a reconciliation between America and its one-time foe.

Norman Maake's Homecoming is a feature that works better as a document of friendships in post-apartheid South Africa than in the 'thriller' clothes it dons. There are wonderful performances in the film's trip through the betrayals of the Africans' struggle and the sacrifices that an armed resistance entails. In its steadfast refusal to bow in reverence to the movement's recognisable faces, the film suggests that whereas it is Nelson Mandela's saintly visage that remains the world's lingering image of the South African struggle, it is in the successes and the failures of the movement's armed dimension that progressives the world over have the most to learn.