Sarah Maldoror, Monangambee, 1968, France, film still
Monangambee (1968), Sarah Maldoror, France, 11 min. French with English subtitles
Et les chiens se taisaient (1978), Sarah Maldoror, France, 13 min. French with English subtitles
Aimé Césaire—le masque des mots (1986), Sarah Maldoror, France, 52 min. French with English subtitles
July 7: With a presentation by Annouchka de Andrade and Brigitte Rollet
Maldoror’s short film Monangambee is based on a story by Angolan writer José Luandino Vieira. The film’s title translates to ”White Death,” at least a sure deportation with no return. In the past this cry accompanied the arrival of the Portuguese slave traders in Angola. Today, the same cry still resounds, the same whistle across the expanse of the country: it is the identification and the signal for collections for the People’s Liberation Front. The film was shot with amateur actors in Algeria and tells the story of a poor Angolan woman who visits her husband, who is imprisoned in the city of Luanda for political reasons. Shot in the late 1960s, this film depicts Portuguese ignorance of Angolan culture and the cruel treatment and imprisonment of people actively opposed to colonialism.
Et les chiens se taisaient is based on recorded excerpts from Aimé Césaire’s play of the same name where the rebel expresses himself in a long pain-racked poem in front of the mother, crying out loud his revolt against the enslavement of his people. Gabriel Glissant and Sarah Maldoror appear as actors at the Museum of Man in Paris which is devoted to Black Africa, integrating three spectators in their game who take the role of silent witnesses. Some pictures of wooden statues and masks from African reserves, as well as escapements of Martinican landscapes, round off this documentary.
Aimé Césaire – le masque des mots is a portrait of the Martinican writer who calls himself a rebellious negro and for whom the poetic act represents an act of freedom. The life itinerary of Aimé Césaire is presented based on three main aspects: his struggle for the rights of black people, his literary life including its beginnings, encounters, and influences, as well as his political involvement and work as mayor of Fort de France.
Annouchka de Andrade is the daughter of Sarah Maldoror. She is the director of the International Film Festival of Amiens, France.
Brigitte Rollet is a French film scholar and writer with a focus on gender studies and the representation of gender and sexuality on screen.
TV Politics is a film program that revisits some of the most significant attempts to articulate a radical approach to the politics of television since the mid twentieth century. It revisits film works conceived for the purpose of rethinking what television could be, while at the same time seeking to provide a different kind of analysis of social and cultural reality.
