Sarah Maldoror Retrospective

How to eat indigestible knowledges

Abstract

This review discusses the sense of strangeness and familiarity experienced by a Brazilian in Lisbon, connecting this personal experience to the work of the anti-colonial filmmaker Sarah Maldoror (1929-2020). Maldoror is recognized as the first woman to direct a feature film in an African country, depicting the Portuguese Colonial War from the perspective of the colonized. In this text—a hybrid of criticism, travel journal, and chronicle – we explore Maldoror's journey through the films seen during the retrospective of her work at the Portuguese Cinematheque. The review provides brief analyses of her most celebrated films, including “Monangambée” (1969) and “Sambizanga” (1972), as well as accounts of her less accessible films such as "Un Masque à Paris" (1978), "Un Dessert pour Constance" (1981), among others. The review highlights the collaboration between Maldoror, Aimé Césaire, and filmmakers of the French Rive Gauche, and how these intellectual exchanges are evident in her filmmaking and her anti-colonial struggle. It also relates Maldoror’s work to literature and the surrealist movement, emphasizing her ability to play with words, navigating between different knowledges, subverting the language and culture of the colonizer through cinematic language itself.