Perfect Storm is a haunting cinematic journey taking us through the tangled history of a nation in order to contextualise a currently burgeoning generational revolt. Using present day verité and interviews, plus archival footage spanning decades, the film raises contemporary questions around whether a new generation of Africans, faced with unprecedented systemic challenges including catastrophic climate change, is emerging to unhinge the status quo. The latter is characterised by Marxist dogma, post-colonial state capture and a kleptocratic elite prepared to use increasing levels of violence when threatened. Told through the personal lens of the filmmaker, the role of South Africa as a regional super power, comes into play, raising the stakes for a generation that is desperate to break from the shackles of the past.

ARTISTIC APPROACH 

Drawn from the last three decades of Mozambican history, spanning a treasure trove of archive from the late 1990s to footage captured shortly after Cyclone Idai in the early 2020s, the film is both an exploration of the polycrisis Mozambique faces, and a personal reflection from a filmmaker who returns to Mozambique in the later stages of his career to finish a story he began in the 1990s. Using a combination of essayistic and reflective modes of documentary storytelling, Perfect Storm crosses this expanse of time and history. There is a long tradition of this type of film from Chris Marker and Nick Broomfield to Petra Costa, where both personal reflection, often poetic and objective argument are woven together allowing for significant freedom. The South African nationality of the filmmaker provides a moral authority to tell the story given the complicity of the old regime and the new government in the processes that continue to unfold.