1956 Maputo, Mozambique
Ana Almeida e Sousa
Born in 1943
First Movie Memory from Maputo, Mozambique
Interviewed on 1/28/2019
by Beatriz Cabrita
Going to the movies was very special to us. We were so young, we must have been 13 or 14. In those days, family life was strict so going to the movie theater was an escape – a prize for proper behavior and good grades. On Saturday afternoons, but not at night, I could go to the movies. It was a way to get the friend group together, to see all the girls and boys from school. I had a secret crush at the time, you see, and I would talk to him during intermissions and after at the café – going to the movies was a pretext for little loves and teenage adventure. It was very important to us.
I usually went to the movie theater on a bus, but if I missed it I would walk there with my brothers. They are twins, but Jorge was always grounded for bad grades and often couldn’t come with us unless we snuck him out. The movie theatre was called Manuel Rodrigues, I remember it very well: large stretched doorways with fat handles, velvet-lined seats, and the smell of the cinema. I remember looking forward to the intermissions when we would grab sweets and a soda. It was all a ritual.
My first memories of going to the movies, the first movie – I know it starred James Dean. I was marked by the movies of the Hollywood Golden Era, especially the James Dean movies of the late 50s. A Rebel Without a Cause, it must have been. Maputo, known then as Lourenço Marques, was heavily influenced by South Africa. American movies were available to us quickly, sometimes in the same year that they were made. This one we must have watched in ’56, in English with Portuguese subtitles. We were teenagers, I remember the movie’s youthful journey, troubled and irreverent youth, and dysfunctional families. I remember alliances, loves and conflicts. And James Dean was amazing, his whole persona embodied the characters he played so well. We all loved him. I also remember very fondly watching East of Eden… John Steinbeck, the writer, he was incredible. I had all these posters in my room – sometimes we could get one from the theater if we asked after the movie. We all had them, it was a part of the culture.
I moved to Maputo when I was 6 years old. In comparison, Portugal was quite rural and isolated: there was a dictatorship where all media, especially foreign movies, were edited for content or censured completely. But back home we could even sneak into the over-17 showings sometimes. I loved Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and, oh, Cleopatra! I grew up with them! I can’t imagine my youth without the movies that made an impression on me and the theater where my earliest friendships started.
We made friends for life in those cinema afternoons… I met the love of my life on a day like this one. After the movie, the group always went to the large café right next to the theater to eat something and drink a Coca-Cola. It was an enchantment with the American movie. Life at the time really was an enchantment – the naivety, the melancholy of adolescence – we made a movie of it all in our heads.
