A leading figure of African cinema who died in 2020, French-born Sarah Maldoror made numerous films in Algeria and Portuguese-speaking Africa, including politically engaged documentaries and fiction films on decolonisation. In particular, the recently rediscovered Sambizanga, which follows the early days of the struggle for independence in Angola. Domingos, a construction worker and member of the underground resistance, is arrested and tortured. The film is outstanding for the poetic power of its editing, and the choice of a Herculean figure to play the missing man pushes the film towards a kind of heroic gesture that confers an even more troubling and sensitive note on this tribute to the combatants of the shadows – men, women, children, old people. FM
Restored print
