Death Metal Angola Q&A | Filmmakers@Google

Director Jeremy Xido discusses Death Metal Angola and the arts with Earl Douglas and Jennifer Wright Cook in a Q&A moderated by Josephine Dorado |

@DMA_FILM

DEATH METAL ANGOLA tracks Wilker and Sonia's dream -- to stage Angola's first-ever national rock concert, bringing together members from different strands of the Angolan hardcore scene from different provinces -- as it unfolds in fits and starts against the bombed out and mined backdrop of the formerly stately Huambo. Rubble and deconstructed spaces provide scenic reminders of why hardcore music has gained a foothold.

What initially looks like a Quixotic undertaking gains momentum, aided by social media and propelled by members of the various branches of the death metal hardcore underground, who join together to stage the event. Raucous and righteous, DMA's look at a rock show off the grid is fulfilling, haunting, and real.

"After all, the primary tenets of that music (rebellion, anger, deafeningly loud sounds) resonate more honestly against the city's war-torn backdrop than pretty much anywhere else. "Rock is the only space where they're allowed to talk about whatever it is they have in their souls," says Huambo native Sonia Ferreira, one of the co-founders of the country's first national rock concert, O Rock Lalimwe Eteke Ifa, of the new generation of Angola musicians who are plugging in" - The FADER