Mosquito

Dreaming of great adventures, seventeen-year-old Zacarias has signed up for the Portuguese army. In 1917, after a long voyage, he ends up in Mozambique, where he has to defend this Portuguese colony against a German invasion. Zacarias can’t wait, but when he contracts malaria, he is forced to stay behind in camp while his unit sets off for Niassa. Hardly recovered, he later leaves the camp on his own, determined to report to his unit. What follows is like a fever dream, as Zacarias travels on foot through Makua territory.

Alongside the native inhabitants, he encounters wild animals, lost colonists and German deserters. Loneliness, hunger, exhaustion and the after-effects of malaria make him increasingly confused. What is real and what is hallucination? Mosquito, told in non-chronological order, is a visually overwhelming war film without any war; the front is elsewhere – perhaps in Zacarias’ head. Director João Nuno Pinto wrests from obscurity an overlooked episode from WWI.

Opening Film IFFR 2020. Also see Opening Night 2020: Mosquito & Party. 

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