The Train of Salt and Sugar

In a harrowing revelation of a particular time and place, comes a universal story of mankind’s extraordinary collective ability to survive and press-on against all odds.  This is the latest film by celebrated Brazilian-born, Mozambiquan-based auteur Licínio Azevedo: Train of Salt and Sugar which will have its African premiere in Competition at the Joburg Film Festival on October 29, 2016.

Set in the civil-war-torn northern Mozambique during the late 80’s, the film has been hailed by some critics as the first “great African Western”, when it premiered in August this year on the 300-square metre screen in at the Locarno Film Festival at the Piazza Grande in Switzerland to a crowd of more than 7000 people. The film won the Independent Italian Critics Award (Boccalini d’Ouro) there for BestFilm.

With script by the director together with Teresa Pereira, adapted from the book of the same name written by Azevedo, the story unfolds in Mozambique in the midst of civil war. A single train connects Nampula in Mozambique to Malawi. No civilians are allowed and yet hundreds risk their lives through 700km of sabotaged tracks. Salomão and Taiar are two soldiers who don’t get along. Rosa is a young nurse on her way to her first job, who soon becomes an object of desire. Mariamu, her close friend, only hopes to trade salt for sugar. Amongst bullets and laughter, life goes on and stories unfold as the train advances under attack, ever so slowly, towards the next stop.