Film Forum

(1972, Sarah Maldoror) In Angola (though shot in Congo-Brazzaville), a woman searches for her imprisoned husband, infant in tow, as a nascent liberation movement grows. French-Guadeloupian director Maldoror was a student of Russian director Mark Donskoy (like Sembène), A.D. on The Battle of Algiers, and an insider in the Angolan liberation movement, thanks to husband, MPLA founder and anti-colonial poet Mario Pinto de Andrade. 16mm print courtesy New York Public Library. Approx. 102 min.

Plus Maldoror’s shorts Monangambeee (1968): literally “white death.” DCP restoration courtesy Arsenal, Berlin; and Et les chiens se taisaient (1978): Gabriel Glissant and Maldoror appear as actors in excerpts of the Aimé Césaire play staged in Paris’s Museum of Man. Digital, courtesy Documenta archives. Approx. 16 min.

Reviews

“Few films are so innately, integrally and consummately revolutionary. Once seen, never forgotten: as cinema and politics, Sambizanga is unimpeachable. Don't miss it.”
– Jon Dieringer, Screen Slate

“One of the standouts in ‘The Hour of Liberation.’ [Director] Sarah Maldoror had an impeccable radical background... The film, made while Angolans were still fighting for independence, functioned as a feedback loop, intensifying the ardency it captured on screen.”
– Sukhdev Sandhu, 4 Columns