Summary

The session Landscapes of labour and construction in colonial films. A glimpse into the archival collection of the Portuguese Cinemateca will screen a curated selection of six films from Cinemateca Portuguesa’s archival collection, illustrating a wide range of provenances, purposes, geographic locations, and historical circumstances. The films will be presented chronologically, from the 1920s to 1969, and will cover different sites in Angola, Mozambique, and Cape Verde. Rooted in propagandistic agenda and in underlying narratives of dominance and oppression, which must be critically assessed and acknowledged, the films produced under Portuguese colonial system provide vivid, nuanced and multidimensional insights into the topic of labour within Portugal’s territorial activities in Africa during the 20th century. Considering the political and ideological framework of Portuguese colonialism, this collection of moving images invites reflection on the labour strategies and mechanisms employed by the colonizers in their exploration of African land, nature, and human resources.

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