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PIFF 42 Official Selection

Djon África

Directed by João Miller Guerra, Filipa Reis

Portugal, Brazil, Cape Verde • 2018 • 96 mins. • In Portuguese with subtitles

Showtimes & Past Screenings

Co-scripted by Pedro Pinho (The Nothing Factory, PIFF 41), this intensely colorful and alive fiction debut by documentarians Guerra and Reis follows Rastafarian Miguel Moreira (aka Djon África) as he traces his Cape Verdean roots from his Lisbon home. Traveling to the island nation in search for traces of his estranged father, Miguel embarks on a languid, pleasurable journey through the countryside, encountering parties, local flavor, and spirits. Djon África is a vibrant, wholly charming road movie that will get under your skin in the most pleasing sense. “In our fractured world, stories of cultural dislocation are burgeoning into a genre unto themselves, but rarely has the subject been explored with such warmth and irony.” —The Playlist.

Filmography: First feature

Sponsored by MUBI and Travel Portland

Appears in: 42nd Portland International Film Festival, PIFF 42: New Directors

The Northwest Film Center recognizes and honors the Indigenous peoples of this region on whose ancestral lands the museum now stands. These include the Willamette Tumwater, Clackamas, Kathlemet, Molalla, Multnomah and Watlala Chinook Peoples and the Tualatin Kalapuya who today are part of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, and many other Native communities who made their homes along the Columbia River. We also want to recognize that Portland today is a community of many diverse Native peoples who continue to live and work here. We respectfully acknowledge and honor all Indigenous communities—past, present, future—and are grateful for their ongoing and vibrant presence.