Monangambééé

Sarah Maldoror (1929–2020) is often described as the mother of Pan-African cinema. Born to a Guadeloupean father and French mother, she devoted her life to the anti-colonial struggle—first as a theater-maker, and from the late 1960s as a filmmaker.

Maldoror’s short debut film Monangambééé (1968) encapsulates the director’s artistic and political vision: this is not militant grandstanding, but a deeply human and lyrical portrayal of colonial inequality and injustice. Based on the short story “O fato completo de Lucas Matesso” (1962) by José Luandino Vieira, it shows how an Angolan activist arrested by the Portuguese occupiers becomes the victim of an absurd linguistic mix-up.

He is imprisoned and tortured beneath a portrait of the Portuguese dictator António de Oliveira Salazar. Rather than filming the torture itself, Maldoror shows the prisoner’s subsequent expressions of despair. These resemble a form of modern dance—an impression that is reinforced by the modern jazz on the soundtrack. The tender way the other prisoners care for him movingly evokes the great importance Maldoror attaches to solidarity.