10 · 24 · 22

After Ten Years of Struggle, A Restored Version of SAMBIZNAGA is Screened at the 20th FICM

Daniel Alejandro Grajeda Hernández

Daniel Alejandro Grajeda Hernández

After ten years of struggle Sambizanga, a film directed by Sarah Maldoror, was finally restored and presented at the 20th Morelia International Film Festival (FICM). The restoration was carried out by the Cineteca di Bologna and The Film Foundation´s World Cinema Project.

The film was presented by Annouchka de Andrade, daughter of the film's director, and was accompanied by Chlöe Roddick, FICM programmer.

 

"I want to thank the Morelia International Film Festival for allowing us to be here," Annouchka de Andrade said as the presentation of her mother's film began. Before showing the film that was made years ago, Annouchka gave us a profile of the director.

Sarah Maldoror was born in the south of France in 1929. Orphaned at a very young age, she decided to start her career in theater. She moved to Paris in the fifties, at a time when she faced considerable difficulties as a Black woman. She surrounded herself with a community of Black people, thus strengthening her identity, to the point of changing her last name to Maldoror, a name inspired by the poem of The Songs of Maldoror by the Comte de Lautréamont.

After receiving unfair treatment in the theater world, she and her classmates created the first Black theater troupe in the country, called “Les Griots,” presenting plays by Black authors and founding an acting school. She then decided to study flimmaking in Moscow.

Her husband was the writer, poet, and founder and first president of the Movement for the Liberation of Angola, Mário Pinto de Andrade, which made them flee Algeria and relocated in Paris. Once there, Sarah decided to make Sambizanga.

After sharing the story of his mother with us, the screening began.

 

Sambizanga portrays the repression of a member of the Angolan Liberation Movement who was arrested by the Portuguese secret police and beaten to death. His wife, unaware of his whereabouts, goes looking for him from police station to police station trying to find out where he is. Sambizanga, is the name of a neighborhood in Luanda where the Portuguese prison used to be.

At the end of the film, there was a Q&A session with the audience, mediated by Clöe Roddick.

According to Annouchka, the French Ministry of Culture funded the film’s realization. In addition, she shared the reason for the 10-year struggle in restoring the film. The producer of the tape sold the rights to another producer, who did not want to do anything with the film for thirty years. When the copyright ran out, Annouchka and Sarah Maldoror approached the producer about their plans to restore the film and release it in theaters for people to see. The new producer refused the idea. However, they reached an agreement where he could keep the rights to the film in all of Francophone Europe and in the rest of the world. Sadly, Sarah Maldoror died before I was able to see her restored film of her again.

Annouchka shared that her mother intended to show how no guerrilla can be won without the participation of women. She also said that the film centralizes her motherhood as one of her characters since it is a fundamental idea for her as she always took Annouchka and her sister with her everywhere she went.

Annouchka contó que su mamá tenía la intención de mostrar cómo ninguna guerrilla se puede ganar sin la participación de las mujeres. Además contó que la película también centraliza la maternidad como uno de sus personajes, pues es una idea fundamental para ella, ya que siempre llevaba a Annouchka y a su hermana con ella a los lugares a los que fuera. 

He also explained the importance of music and dance in the film. This is because clandestine parties were held in the past to be able to meet in secret without raising suspicions. This element is part of a cultural context that can be seen in the film and can generate certain questions in audiences.