Private Project

Kora, people that sing their ancestors will not die

Kora is one of the most important musical instruments of West Africa. Cause of pride for nations that were born from tribes without borders, there are discrepancies about the origin of this instrument. But it's in the Guinea-Bissau that most legends about Kora's invention intersect themselves.
Yet it's not just Kora's History that matters but all the stories that we hear first hand sprinkling the listener's imagination, carrying us beyond time on a unique atmosphere among reality and fiction, through an entire population that still claims Kora as unique and their own.

  • Jorge Correia Carvalho
    Director
  • Jorge Correia Carvalho
    Writer
  • Jorge Correia Carvalho
    Producer
  • Project Title (Original Language):
    Kora, povo que canta os seus antepassados não morrerá
  • Project Type:
    Documentary
  • Runtime:
    56 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    February 22, 2014
  • Production Budget:
    10,000 EUR
  • Country of Origin:
    Portugal
  • Country of Filming:
    Guinea-Bissau
  • Language:
    Portuguese
  • Shooting Format:
    HD1080p MOV H264
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    Yes
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Festival Internacional de Cinema Etnográfico
    Lisboa, Portugal
    May 17, 2014
    Nacional Premiere
  • Cabo Verde Internacional Film Festival
    Ilha do Sal, Cape Verd
    October 18, 2014
    Cabo Verde Premiere
    Best Feature Documentary
  • ExtremaDoc
    Caceres, Spain
    October 22, 2014
    Spain Premiere
  • Intimate Lens – Festival of Visual Anthropology
    Calvi, Italy
    November 9, 2014
    Italy Premiere
  • CinePlateau
    Ilha de Santiago, Cape Verd
    November 25, 2014
  • FACA - Festa de Antropologia, Cinema e Arte
    Lisboa, Portugal
    March 7, 2015
  • World Film Festival
    Tartu, Estonia
    March 17, 2015
    Estonia Premiere
  • Ethnografilm
    Paris, France
    April 10, 2015
    France Premiere
  • Festival Internacional du Film PanAfrican
    Cannes, France
    May 3, 2015
  • Festival Jean Rouch
    Paris, France
    November 10, 2015
Director Biography - Jorge Correia Carvalho

I started my activity in 2001 as a Video Editor in television projects. But it's the documentary genre that traces more strongly my career. With a vast participation on documentaries as an editor, I've developed a particular interest in this area, with the creation of my own projects, being this about the Kora, a West African ancestral instrument the most recent. Since 2007 I'm an associate professor at ECATI (Universidade Lusófona) of the Cinema and Animation courses for the classes of film editing.
I have a Masters Degree in Communication Sciences, by the Universidade Católica Portuguesa, whose dissertation ended in the book - Cinema e Tecnologia, Pós-produção e a Transformação da Imagem.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

In company of my compulsion to wandering, freedom, and will to known, I left for Africa. And this time it would be different from so many other journeys already stamped on the passport. This time I would, or I would try, to materialize the ambition of making a documentary.
Making a documentary had long been a dream unfulfilled. So I kept imagining my own projects, with the profound desire of conveying new views of the world, casting new clues to awake the curiosity. I wanted to know more.