Fourth session of the Cine-Kin: Filipa César et al., running parallel to the Meteorizações exhibition. The screening will feature Sarah Maldoror's Monangambééé (1968), Billy Woodberry's A Story from Africa (2019), and Mathieu Kleyebe Abonnenc's Ça va, ça va, on continue (2012). The screening will feature a presentation and final commentary by Ricardo Nicolau, curator and deputy director of the Serralves Museum.

Offering an overview through practices, generations, and contexts of production that, while very different, converge on the same type of ethical, aesthetic, or thematic concerns, this cycle reflects on a cinema that does not merely seek to describe the world, but above all to act upon it. It is, above all, a series of encounters that share a radical attention to the conditions of image production and their consequences in the world.

MONANGAMBÉÉÉ

Sarah Maldoror | ALG, ANG, FRA | 1968 | 18’

Sarah Maldoror brought visibility to the African wars of decolonization: Angola, Guinea-Bissau, French Guinea, Cape Verde... Her short film “Monangambééé” addresses the torture by the Portuguese army of a sympathizer of the Angolan resistance. At the end of editing, Sarah Maldoror approached the members of the Art Ensemble of Chicago during a concert in Paris and asked them to add sound to her film. The next day, they watched the film, were convinced, and recorded their first soundtrack for free, as a sign of African-American solidarity. Filmed in Algiers, “Monangambééé” is a film about torture and, more broadly, about the misunderstanding between the colonized and the colonizers. It is based on a novel by Angolan writer Luandino Vieira, who was imprisoned at the time by the Portuguese colonial authorities.

A STORY FROM AFRICA

Billy Woodberry | POR, USA | 2019 | 33’

Following the resolution of the 1884-85 Berlin Conference on the partition of Africa, the Portuguese army enlists a talented second lieutenant to record the effective occupation of the territory belonging to the Cuamato people, conquered in 1907 in southern Angola. “A Story from Africa” brings to life a rarely seen photographic archive through the tragic story of Calipalula, the Cuamato nobleman who was instrumental in the unfolding of events in this Portuguese pacification campaign.

ÇA VA, ÇA VA, ON CONTINUE

Mathieu Kleyebe Abonnenc | POR | 2012 | 30’

Through actress Bia Gomes, this film by Mathieu Abonnenc dialogues with Flora Gomes' Morte Negada, exploring the role of records of the colonial war, the appropriation of the culture and voice of the other, difference, and identity. A provocative film, full of self-criticism.