The Cinema and Decolonisation Cycle returns with a new season in 2024/2025, bringing monthly sessions in a film club format to explore the legacies and memories of decolonisation. The initiative runs in parallel with the exhibition on 'Deconstructing Colonialism, Decolonising Imaginary', at the National Anthropology Museum.
The first session, which is scheduled for the 9th November, at 10.00., in ISEG's Auditorium 2, (Quelhas Building, floor 2)will show the film entitled 'Independence' (Fradique, 2016, Angola, 105 min). The work presents memories of the colonial situation in Angola, reveals the initial steps of the liberation struggle, and covers some of its main scenarios. The post-film debate will feature Ana Paula Tavares, poet, professor, and historian.
The showings will take place from November 2024 to June 2025 in ISEG's Auditorium 2. Each showing will be attended by artists involved in the making of the films, as well as researchers and moderators nominated by CEsA.
Free admission.
About the film 'Independence'
On the 11th November, 1975, Angola proclaimed independence, 14 years after the start of the armed struggle against Portuguese colonial rule. Salazar's regime refused to negotiate with the independence fighters, who were forced to go into hiding, to prison, or in exile. While almost all of Africa was celebrating the end of the colonial empires, Angola and the other Portuguese colonies were subject to a very different fate. It was only after the military coup of 25 de Abril, 1974 overthrew the regime that Portugal recognised the peoples of the colonies' right to self-determination.
The years of struggle evoked in pursuing 'Independência' determined Angola's course after 1975. Political options, internal conflicts, and international alliances started to emerge during the anti-colonial struggle. The main organisations (FNLA and MPLA, and later UNITA) never formed a common front and their contradictions were amplified by the context of the Cold War. Independence was proclaimed in a climate of war, but with great emotion and pride, as the film tells us.
Watch the film's trailer HERE.
Further information available on this LINK.