(Re)imagining African Independence

The fortieth anniversary of the independence of the African countries colonized by Portugal presents a valuable opportunity to reassess how colonialism has been «imagined» through the medium of the moving image. The essays collected in this volume investigate Portuguese colonialism and its filmic and audio-visual imaginaries both during and after the Estado Novo regime, examining political propaganda films shot during the liberation wars and exploring the questions and debates these generate. The book also highlights common aspects in the emergence of a national cinema in Angola, Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau. By reanimating (and decolonizing) the archive, it represents an important contribution to Portuguese colonial history, as well as to the history of cinema and the visual arts.

Maria do Carmo Piçarra is an FCT Postdoctoral Researcher at the Centre for Communication and Society Research at the University of Minho and the Centre for Film Aesthetics and Cultures at the University of Reading. Teresa Castro is Associate Professor in Film Studies and Image Theory at the Université Sorbonne Nouvelle - Paris 3.

CONTENTS: Lúcia Nagib: Foreword - Maria do Carmo Piçarra/Teresa Castro: Colonial Reflections, Post-Colonial Refractions: Film and the Moving Image in the Portuguese (Post-)Colonial Situation - Maria do Carmo Piçarra: Ruy Duarte: A Cinema of the Word Aspiring to Imagine Angolanness - Raquel Schefer: Between the Visible and the Invisible: Mueda, Memória e Massacre (1982) by Ruy Guerra and the Cultural Forms of the Makonde Plateau - Ros Gray: Clear Lines on an Internationalist Map: Foreign Filmmakers in Angola at Independence - Robert Stock: The Many Returns to Wiriyamu: Audiovisual Testimony and the Negotiation of Colonial Violence - Afonso Ramos: «Rarely penetrated by camera or film»: NBC's Angola: Journey to a War (1961) - Rui Lopes: The US and Portuguese Colonialism as Imagined through Television Drama - Iolanda Vasile: African Independence and the Socialist Republic of Romania's Photographic Archive - José Manuel Costa: Colonial Collection of the Portuguese Film Archive: Shot, Reverse Shot, Off-Screen - Ana Balona de Oliveira: A Decolonizing Impulse: Artists in the Colonial and Post-Colonial Archive, Or the Boxes of Departing Settlers between Maputo, Luanda and Lisbon - Teresa Castro: In-Between Memory and History: Artists' Films and the Portuguese Colonial Archive - Daniel Barroca: Drawing and Undrawing my Genealogy - Filipa César: A Grin without Marker - Mónica de Miranda: Hotel Globo.