LAT17 Gabriel and the Mountain

Based on the incredible true story of a Brazilian man who was found dead on a mountain on the border between Malawi and Mozambique, Gabriel and the Mountain is an existential meditation on discovery - and what it really means to be an explorer.

Director Fellipe Barbosa faithfully retraces the last seventy days of Gabriel’s (João Pedro Zappa) life, as he mixes with locals in East Africa in an attempt to find his own meaning beyond the realm of otherness into which he has been cast. The reason behind Gabriel’s compulsion to explore - and ultimately, his untimely death - is an unresolved mystery that the film seeks to comprehend. Many of the locals are played by people who met the real Gabriel Buchmann, resulting in a film that is a hybridisation of documentary and fiction - blending two formats into a single seamless production. 

Shot on location in a myriad of African nations, Gabriel and the Mountain is ultimately a poignant reflection on tourism, asking whether a stranger in a foreign land can ever truly become a local.