Maria João Ganga is an

Angola Angola, officially the Republic of Angola, is a country on the west-Central Africa, central coast of Southern Africa. It is the second-largest Portuguese-speaking world, Portuguese-speaking (Lusophone) country in both total area and List of c ...

n film director and screenwriter, best known for being the first woman to make a full-length feature film in Angola. Her film ''Hollow City'' (''Na Cidade Vazia''), which she wrote and directed was released in 2004. The film won the Special Jury Prize at the 2004 Paris Film Festival.

Biography

Ganga attended the Ecole Superieure Libre d'Etudes Cinématographiques, (ESEC) film school in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

. Ganga wrote the screenplay for ''Hollow City'', based on a novel by Artur Carlos Maurício Pestana dos Santos (

Pepetela Artur Carlos Maurício Pestana dos Santos (born 1941) is a major Angolan writer of fiction. He writes under the name Pepetela. A Portuguese Angolan, Pepetela was born in Benguela, Portuguese Angola, and fought as a member of the MPLA in the l ...

). The film is set in 1991 during the Angolan civil war. This is a story about lives disrupted by the war. The story centers around an eleven year old boy, N'dala (Roldan Pinto João), who witnesses the massacre of his family by soldiers in his native village of Bie. N'dala and other orphaned children are rescued and taken to

Luanda Luanda ( ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Angola, largest city of Angola. It is Angola's primary port, and its major industrial, cultural and urban centre. Located on Angola's northern Atlantic coast, Luanda is Ang ...

's capital by a missionary nun. N'dala runs away and wanders into the center of the enormous city where he faces many challenges. Ganga worked as assistant director on the documentary ''Rostov-Luanda'' by Abderrahmane Sissako. She has also written and directed for

theatre Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors to present experiences of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a Stage (theatre), stage. The performe ...

Filmography

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ganga, Maria Joao Women screenwriters Angolan women film directors Living people 1964 births Angolan film directors People from Huambo