Tracing Cinema as Anticolonial Resistance through the Archives of "Présence Africaine"

This article considers the relationship between the journal Présence Africaine, and cinema as a vehicle for anticolonial thought and practice. Drawing upon archival research on the writings of Paulin Vieyra, the article explores the continued resonance of his work today, whilst also problematizing the historical silencing of Francophone African women filmmakers.

Les armes miraculeuses

Née en 1928, Sarah Maldoror s’était donné un nom à la mesure de ses engagements artistiques et politiques. Auprès de ses amis de Présence Africaine ou des militants du Front de Libération Nationale de l’Algérie (FLN) et du Parti Africain pour l’indépendance de la Guinée-Bissau et du Cap-Vert (PAIGC), elle accompagnait les mouvements de décolonisation et les luttes de libération africaine. Réalisatrice de près de quarante films de tous formats, elle reste pourtant méconnue. Elle s’est éteinte le 13 avril 2020 des suites de la Covid-19.

Entre cultura, solidariedade internacional e “mundo negro”: a negociação de sentidos na Présence Africaine (1955-56)

<p>Este artigo parte das publicações da revista cultural francesa e senegalesa, <em>Présence Africaine</em>, propondo pensar como esta última procurou se posicionar, partindo do mundo intelectual, como interventora na imaginação e no fomento de soluções políticas e culturais para inserir novos participantes, principalmente africanos, no concerto internacional, em diálogo com bandeiras de solidariedade internacional/racial entre perspectivas locais e globais. Por meio da análise de debates, comunicações e mensagens retiradas das atas do Primeiro Congresso de Escritores e Artistas Negros, investiga-se como a revista se apropriou de novas linguagens e possibilidades políticas disponíveis e legitimadas no pós-Segunda Guerra Mundial, conciliando-as, não sem dificuldades, a discursos internacionalistas de movimentos políticos anteriores, como a <em>Négritude</em> e o pan-africanismo.</p><p><strong>Palavras-chave: </strong>presença africana | negritude | Pan-africanismo | História intelectual | Guerra Fria.</p><p> </p><strong><em>Abstract: </em></strong><p><em>This paper is based on publications of the French/Senegalese journal Présence Africaine and its intellectual stance in seeking to intervene in the design and dissemination of political/cultural solutions to include new participants (especially from Africa) in the international scene, in dialogue with the goal of international/racial solidarity goals at local and global levels. The paper examines debates, communications and messages from the annals of the First Congress of Black Writers and Artists in investigating how the journal appropriated new communicative strategies and political possibilities that emerged and were legitimized after World War II, in relation to the internationalizing discourses of previous political movements such as Négritude and Pan-Africanism.</em></p><p><strong>Keywords: </strong>présence africaine | négritude | Pan-Africanism | Intellectual history | Cold War.</p><p> </p>

The House for the Students of the Empire (CEI), African women poets from the 1950s, and Sarah Maldoror’s films

In the 1950s, in Lisbon, several students coming from different Portuguese colonies in Africa met at “CEI - Casa dos Estudantes do Império” - a cultural and leisure centre for college students and other scholars from Africa or Asia. I would highlight names such as Amílcar Cabral (1924-1973), Mário Pinto de Andrade (1928-1990) and Agostinho Neto (1922-1979), famous activists that, at the time, invested in cultural forms of resistance against colonialism, being literature a means to raise political awareness among students. The high-profile women writers in this millieu were Noémia de Sousa (1926-2002), Alda Lara (1930-1962) and Alda do Espírito Santo (1926-2010). My research will assess the role of these three women in the cultural front of a collective political awakening, which later led to the independence struggles of the Portuguese colonies. These three women were also the first canonised women writers in their own national literary systems, thus being founding figures in a women’s genealogy of literary achievement. However, their works also the represent a particular generation, framed by the atmosphere lived at CEI. As a consequence of the political activism developed by the CEI millieu, some of the involved young scholars had to leave Portugal going into exile in Paris, where they gathered around the magazine Présence Africaine. This paper also explores CEI’s “Paris connection”, via Mário Pinto de Andrade and his wife, the film director Sarah Maldoror (1938-), who eventually adapted Luandino Vieira’s texts to cinema (Monangambé, 1968 and Sambizanga, 1972). At the time, Maldoror’s work was conceived as a means to promote international awareness of the regime Angolan people were fighting against. The final aim of the research is to explore the articulation among the works by these four women in relation to CEI’s activism.

O debate pan-africanista na revista Présence Africaine (1956 -1963)

Resumo Este artigo visa a analisar o debate sobre o ideário pan-africanista na revista Présence Africaine, entre 1956 e 1963. Para isso, serão investigados, neste material, três grupos de fontes primárias: a) artigos autorais na revista relacionados ao tema; b) editorais da mesma sobre o assunto; c) Atas do I (1956) e do II (1959) Congresso dos Escritores e Artistas Negros. Com essa pesquisa, buscam-se elementos para uma compreensão menos anacrônica de tal ideário em um momento crucial de sua possível consolidação como uma ideologia política pós-colonial. A tese que se desvela desse exame é que o debate sobre a personalidade africana teve ali papel central, visando aliar política e cultura em uma mesma interpretação do pan-africanismo.