Special Session of the ACTIVA-TE Film Festival at the UEM

The Special Session of the Film Festival was directed to UEM Communication and Arts’ students, with the main objective of contributing to the education and awareness of citizenship on activism and the right to health and bringing to consciousness the important role that communication and art exert in the context of health.

The event, lasting just over 2 hours, had on its agenda the projection of the film ʽʽCalçasʼʼ, directed by Paulo Guambe, and a debate panel that was attended by António Mate, human rights defender and collaborator of the Citizen Observatory for Health (OCS), Paulo Guambe, filmmaker and university teacher, under the moderation of Miranda Munhua, a specialist in health communication and collaborator of medicusmundi.

The film “Calças” (Paints) is a short film produced in 2018 by Paulo Guambe, under the school internship in cinema and audio-visual at ISARC, whose story revolves around a young man who loses his life after not having access to medical assistance in a public hospital, due to presenting himself dressed in shorts.

During the debate, Paulo Guambe reaffirmed that cinema and art in general can serve as effective instruments for solving practical problems in society. In an excerpt from his film ʽʽCalçasʼʼ, Guambe states that ʽʽArt should not be for fun, it must be done to change the attitudes of the power holdersʼʼ.

Then, António Mate stressed that health is a universal right that cannot be negotiated. For this expert, the projected film illustrates some of the barriers that users find in access to health services in Mozambique. "We have seen that lack of cordiality can determine a person's life, to say that these barriers we find can cost a citizen's life", he said.

Some of the challenges in the exercise of the right to health in Mozambique are related to illicit charges, the lack of knowledge about the instruments of denunciation, the lack of empathy by health providers, the problem of infrastructure, the lack of Inclusion of people with disabilities, the difficult access to medicines in hospitals, among others.

It should be noted that this film show is inserted in the "Activa-te" Campaign, which was launched last February by the Alliance for Health, to defend the right to health in Mozambique, in the areas of the right to health, Obstetric violence, Improvement of services to women victims of VBG, Rights and Duties of the patient, Sexual Diversities and Positive Masculinities, Nutrition and Community Health, focusing on obtaining positive effects for the strengthening of the National Health System.

This activity took place with the financial support of the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID) and other co-financers.