La Double Vie de Doña Ermelinda
Carlos Aldo Lee
1995 - 69 min - Betacam SP - Couleur - France

Two years ago, my grand-mother, aged 84, died in Maputo, a town devastated for over twenty years by war in a country that was one of the first in southern Africa to win independence.
This film traces the history of a family who have experienced the riches and sumptuous privileges of colonialism then were forced to face Monzambican nationalist claims. It is the history of the birth of a nation, from the last days of Portuguese colonialism, with the struggle for independence, the tragedies and suffering of civil war, until October 1994 and the first democratic elections that the country had ever had.
The most important thing in this documentary is the reconstitution of the main stages in the life of my grandmother. Our study which was both poetic and factual, reflects the ironies and tragedies of a personal story which is locked into a political and social context by tenderness and emotion.