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Angola is the very definition of a war-torn African nation. The country endured almost constant war for the forty years prior to 2002. A lasting peace accord was finally reached, but four decades of violence have decimated Angola's cultural legacy, and left a populace deeply wounded by the ravages of war. This is the backdrop for Death Metal Angola, a documentary about the surprising, and thriving, death metal scene in the West African country. Anchoring this inspired film is an almost transcendental couple; Sonia Ferreira and Wilker Flores live and breathe hardcore rock and roll, and dream of holding the first-ever national rock concert in their war-torn city of Huambo. They also run the Okutiuka Orphanage, where Ferreira is "mother" to 55 children. These youths prove...

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Christopher Bourne first brought Death Metal Angola to our attention in his coverage of Doc NYC 2013. Following its successful festival run, the film is currently in consideration for a Best Documentary Oscar nomination, and will be unleashed in the Us this Friday.Sonia Ferreira and Wilker Flores live and breathe hardcore rock and roll. They run the Okutiuka orphanage in the war-ravaged city of Huambo, Angola and dream of mounting the first-ever national rock concert. Raucous and righteous, Death Metal Angola follows their story, giving audiences a look at a rock show off the grid that is fulfilling, haunting, and real.Check out the images below, and definitely don't miss the fantastic trailer for this *spoiler alert* marvelous documentary. Then come back for our full review...

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Nearly all art is reactionary, and death metal is no different. The extreme nature of this usually apolitical subgenre (whose most influential outposts are Tampa, Florida, and Gothenburg, Sweden) takes on new meanings in Death Metal Angola, Jeremy Xido's documentary charting the rise of heavy music in the wake of that south African nation's decades-long civil war. For many of the budding musicians interviewed here, the genre's aggressive qualities aren't just a coping mechanism, but also a means of recontextualizing their personal and national traumas — stories of lost loved ones are the norm, not least because an orphanage run by a saint of a woman named Sonia Ferreira hosts much of the footage. "I think the beats in death and black metal are derived from Af...

The short story, courtesy of the film's website, goes... Following nearly 40 years of unrelenting war, peace and reconstruction are slowly arriving to Angola. Damaged first by the war for independence from Portugal, Angola was then ripped apart by a devastating civil war that orphaned thousands of children. Huambo, Angola’s second largest city, finds 55 of these children in the Okutiuka orphanage under the care of Sonia Ferreira. Sonia’s boyfriend, Wilker Flores, is a death metal guitarist who uses sounds and rhythms of this hardcore music as a path to healing, or, as Sonia says, “to clear out the debris from all these years of war.” The feature documentary, Death...