Angola: (re-)imaginar o nascimento de uma nação no cinema militante

Abstract

The present article examines the use of cinema as an instrument of national liberation in colonial Angola. After contextualizing the use of cinema by independence movements in Portugal’s former colonies, I question first whether the activities of cineclubes in Angola contributed to the development of militant films. I then explore whether the fact that Angola’s independence struggle had early on been the subject of filmed international reportage was a determining factor in the use of film as an instrument of struggle, even before the publication of Fernando Solanas e Octavio Getino’s “Towards a Third Cinema” (1969). Finally, I focus on the use of cinema by the MPLA, analyzing Sarah Maldoror’s cinematic adaptation of José Luandino Vieira’s narratives of militance and colonial incarceration.