
Beauty and Bloodshed: Mozambique, A Nation on Edge
Mozambique's flag carries a Kalashnikov, a leftover symbol from a civil war that killed more than a million people before the 1992 peace accords. This film follows the country's uneasy recovery, now strained by a jihadist insurgency in the mostly Muslim north, where fighters allied with ISIS have killed roughly 3,000 people and displaced 800,000 more. Rwandan troops, deployed to retake Caliphate strongholds, manage to push insurgents back within weeks, but the film shows refugee camps still short of food and medicine more than a year on. Cameras get exclusive access to the world's largest ruby mine, where hundreds of tons of earth are sifted daily, and to the colonial-era architecture of a UNESCO World Heritage port town. Offshore, huge gas reserves sit undeveloped, French energy company Total's investment plans frozen by the security threat. The result is a portrait of a country caught between exceptional natural wealth, in gems, gas, and coastline, and the poverty, corruption, and violence that keep it from cashing in on any of it.