“Os Cantos de Maldoror”: Cinema of Liberation of the “Realizadora-Romancista”

Abstract

In the context of the international production of a political cinema, engagé, Sarah Maldoror created and maintained -- from Monangambé to Sambizanga, both on the anti-colonial struggle in Angola, through Des fusils pour Banta, flmed in the maquis of Guinea-Bissau -- a singular practice. She composed a political cinema, served by an aesthetically careful look, and in which, through fctional elements -- and not through the documentary options and the direct cinema feature then characteristic of militant cinema - the action is not as central as the psychological composition of the characters.

Despite the aesthetic quality of her flms and the psychological density of her characters, criticism and attempts to control her creative options marked the beginning of the cinematographic work of what is considered the frst African women director but who still does not have the recognition won by her male peers.