This Is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection
The Sundance Festival jury not only awarded Mosese's film its Special Prize, but also labelled it "visionary," raving about the avant-garde reinterpretation and fresh perspective on the generations-old conflict between tradition and progress. Firmly down-to-earth, which is precisely what the dispute is over, the narrative thread spins around several fields and a cemetery while This Is Not A Burial... transports viewers into the realm of magic, ritual, and dreams. Because the battle over the dam that will flood a tiny village in Lesotho is essentially a battle for tradition, ghosts and memory. Its leader is the widow Mantoa, whose son died in a mine accident in South Africa; she just wants to die to join her loved ones. Mourning, her back turned on life, Mantoa plans her own burial, but the octogenarian's plans are interrupted by the government's decision to build a dam that will flood the village and the cemetery. She refuses to let this place die and puts up her own dam against greed, the trampling of tradition, and destruction of her tiny community. A narrator playing a local instrument called lesiba reports her struggle, telling Mantoa’s story as a myth that is resurrected every now and again in the heroic deeds of ordinary people.
awards
Sundance FF 2020 - World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award
Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese
Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese was born in 1980 and is a director, screenwriter and visual artist. Co-founder of the Mokoari collective, co-creator of Barefoot Cinema, which references the achievements of Third Cinema and promotes radical auteur cinema. He is originally from Lesotho and lives in Berlin. Mosese is a self-taught filmmaker, as he said in an interview with Variety, "I come from a violent place and cinema was a way to ‘escape.’ They used to project 16mm films when I was growing up, mostly American films. I watched them religiously." Short films by Mosese have screened at the festival in Clermont-Ferrand, Raindance IFF, Festival del Cinema Africano, d'Asia e America Latina, and Durban IFF. His last two films premiered at festivals in Venice (This Is Not a Burial, It's a Resurrection) and in Berlin (Mother, I'm Suffocating...).
Selected filmography
2010 Tears of Blood
2013 For Those Whose God is Dead
2014 Mosonngoa (short)
2016 Behemot: Or the Game of God (short)
2019 Mother, I’m Suffocating. This Is My Last Film About You (doc)
2019 To nie pogrzeb, to zmartwychwstanie / This Is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection