Maputo Story In Maputo, the 28-year-old Rastafarian painter Phambi leads a precarious life, aiming to find money to pay his son’s school fees, as the boy risks expulsion due to late payments. Two young women, feminist activists, support him and model for his paintings.

The art scene in Maputo, the capital of Mozambique, is set within a large, sprawling metropolis of the former Portuguese colony. Hidden Era (the international title) takes us into this context, far from Western stereotypes about contemporary African societies. This debut film by Colombian filmmaker Carlos Vargas, now based in Berlin, was presented at the latest Tribeca Festival. The film follows the character of Phambi, a 28-year-old Rastafarian painter with a son, Ixon, struggling to earn enough to keep him in school. Phambi is surrounded by two women, Paula and Ednora, who often pose for his paintings. They are deeply involved in the feminist movement and, despite their affection for Phambi, they don’t shy away from confronting him about the patriarchal elements present in his religion.

The Maputo depicted by Carlos Vargas resembles the West of the 1970s, but in an African mixed-race context: alternative and Rasta artists, feminist battles, sexual liberation—shown even in the portrayal of topless models—and smoking joints on the beach. The trio of protagonists physically and stylistically resemble the famous musical group Boney M., a symbol of an era. For Phambi, art is a weapon, a force to earn a living and keep his son in school, in a constant battle. Even the child is aware of the unpaid school fees.

Phambi uses a unique painting technique, throwing colored water onto the canvas and then smearing it, mixing the fresh colors into a kind of watercolor messiness, a blend of indistinctness. Carlos Vargas establishes a continuous dialogue between cinema, the protagonist’s painting, his life context, and the city. The film’s frames create geometric, rigorous compositions, sometimes forming still lifes, sometimes tableau vivant. Phambi’s paintings are often shown alongside color jars, echoing the arrangement of sake bottles in Ozu’s interior scenes. Geometric, too, is the shot of the two women, with one reflected in a mirror. Symmetry is again present as the women write, probably feminist slogans, on the wall of a dilapidated house. The paintings blend with the city’s encrusted walls and colors. The film itself has an internal symmetry, with recurring situations like climbing long stairs to a terrace and then reaching a woman’s home where she buys paintings, always wearing a decorated dress. Some scenes are purely pictorial, like the feminist protest dominated by violet. And there is a beautiful scene in which Phambi and the child visit an art museum, pausing in front of a large abstract painting. Ixon understands it perfectly—an energy has been transmitted.

What’s most interesting about Carlos Vargas’ style is his avoidance of camera movements, at least on a tripod. There is only one such shot. Still, the camera often moves with Phambi, the characters, and the paintings, fixed in various modes of transport, rejecting a ‘geocentric’ perspective. The very first image shows Phambi on a carousel. This is followed by a shot of a feminist slogan on a wall, announcing the thematic and stylistic directions of the film. The camera often rides in the van as we cross bridges and streets with the characters and paintings flashing by. It will also be on a boat, or ahead of Phambi as he rides a bicycle with the child. In this way, the film’s images take on the wandering, restless character of a tormented soul always on the move.