The militant Image in Mozambique

The presentation will situate the films of the armed struggle and the cinema culture that was constructed in Mozambique after independence at the center of a trans-national movement of militant ciné-cultural practices.This movement sought both to harness cinema as an agent of social change in Africa, and to decolonise filmmaking itself in terms of production, distribution and exhibition. The presentation will explore manifestations of the militant image in terms of contradictory tendencies towards disciplinary models of revolutionary comportment embodied in the figure of the ‘New Man’ and more experimental, anti-authoritarian modes of politically engaged cinema, both of which were present within the nation-building project of the InstitutoNacional de Cinema established in 1976. The mission of the INC was to ‘delivery to the people an image of the people’. In the ‘birth of a nation’ through film, how does the militant image insert itself into the revolutionary situation of decolonisation, and how can its significance and potentiality be understood today?

Ros Gray, Estudos Artísticos, Goldsmith College, Universidade de Londres

A segunda sessão do 4º Observatório de África, América Latina e Caraíbas tem lugar no próximo Sábado, dia 1 de Março, às 15h, no Aud.3 da Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian. O tema será A arte do comum e a produção da cultura: O Anticolonialismo da Imagem Militante à Guerra das Escritas. A entrada será livre, mediante inscrição prévia. Consultem a programação.