Monangambééé. 1969. Angola/Algeria. Directed by Sarah Maldoror. Screenplay by Maldoror, Mario de Andrade, Serge Michel. With Carlos Pestana, Noureddine Dreis, Athmane Sabi, Elisa Pestana (Andrade), Mohamed Zinet. DCP. 17 min.
Based on a short story by José Luandino Vieira—its title derives from the Kimbundu word for “contract laborer”—Sarah Maldoror’s debut film is “a miniature of the anti-colonial struggle in Portugal’s African colonies” (Jeremy Harding). Maldoror lets bodies and music (the free jazz of the Art Ensemble of Chicago) do the talking, giving voice to the resistance of the Angolan people against Portuguese colonialism. Shot in 16mm black and white, Monangambéée is an expression of ardent defiance; a few years later the filmmaker would declare, “I don’t have the time to make didactic political films.”
Sambizanga. 1972. Angola/France. Directed by Sarah Maldoror. Screenplay by Maldoror, Mário de Andrade, Maurice Pons, based on a novella by José Luandino Vieira. With Domingos de Oliveira, Elisa Andrade, Jean M’Vondo. DCP courtesy Janus Films. In Portuguese, Kimbundu, Lingala; English subtitles. Restored by The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project and Cineteca di Bologna at L’Image Retrouvée in association with Éditions René Chateau and the family of Sarah Maldoror. Funding provided by the Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation. This restoration is part of the African Film Heritage Project, an initiative created by The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project, the Pan African Federation of Filmmakers and UNESCO—in collaboration with Cineteca di Bologna—to help locate, restore, and disseminate African cinema.. 102 min.
A poetic interweaving of wordless choreography with neorealist reportage, Sarah Maldoror’s Sambizanga is a landmark of political cinema, a spur to the independence movement in Angola, and a catalyst for liberation movements worldwide. The film, which was shot in Congo-Brazzaville as a surrogate for violent Angola, centers on Domingos Xavier, a truck driver and clandestine revolutionary activist who is arrested by the Portuguese secret police and taken prisoner in the capital of Luanda. Determined to secure her husband’s release, with only her baby on her back, Domingos’s wife Maria makes a journey, both literal and metaphysical, from the lush provinces that seem blissfully free of colonial taint to the musseques (shantytowns) of Luanda. Along the way, she inspires local men and women—played by real-life resistance fighters—to join her in the struggle for freedom. “The freshness and beauty of the film are inseparable from its power. The film seems to flow like a river, with all the energy of one. It is a remarkable movie made by an incredible filmmaker” (Martin Scorsese).