Filme: Lion of the Desert
[USA/Líbia, 1981, 173 minutes]
Summary: Directed by Moustapha Akkad. It deals with the history of the 'pacification' of Libya (conquered from the Turkish in 1911) between 1929 and 1931, during which the guerrilla actions, lead by the Libyan leader Omar Mukhtar, reached their peak.
Discussant : Celso Rosa

Presentation of the Movie and Debate Cycle «Meetings with History»

The decade of 1960 inaugurated a new political moment in Africa. However, the transitions to independence were accompanied, in several cases, by situations of extreme violence, which reflected the existing political complexity and the imperial intolerance. This cycle (1st semester of 2011) aims at watching and discussing this movies as a political testimony of the African independence project's construction, opening paths toward a deeper analysis of the different actors that these 'meetings with history' seek to recover.

Thus, this project's main goal is to mark these events and promote a wide and multidimensional reflection on the colonial issue, contributing to the necessary enrichment of the analyses about this subject.

Such reflection is especially significant due to a wide range of motives. In fact, the hegemonic interpretations of the colonialism and its conceptualization as a mere formal political relationship of domination make the complexity and diversity of the domination, exploitation, violence and discrimination forms generated by the colonialism invisible. Even focusing on the diversity of the European colonial experiences in Africa, these perspectives generalize to such extent the modes of colonial power production and exercise that the African peoples' life stories, experiences and resistances tend to be narrated and interpreted through the dominant perspective of the former metropolis.

Echoing the proposals and concerns of a postcolonial and emancipatory perspective and seeking to promote a wider comparative perspective, we intend to highlight the problematic of colonialism in a multidimensional way, exercise the right to memory and historical truths and reflect on the contemporary ways in which the colonial experience is, today, expressed and reproduced.

Based on the screening of fiction movies, documentaries and other historical materials, both from that period and contemporary, and intending to emphasize the African cinematography in a clear response to the postcolonial appeals, we will promote extended debates on that material.

The debates may be recorded by CES and then made available online.

The project will have two key moments. The first moment - during the 1st semester of 2011 - will deal with the colonial issues from a more global and cross-disciplinary perspective, in order to contextualize them in the African domain, beyond the restricted circle of Lusophony. The second moment, starting in September 2011, will consist on thematic semi-cycles, each one dedicated to the experience of specific countries. Also relevant is that in each thematic semi-cycle, we will attempt to approach each national case in a multidimensional way, which implies searching material, both from that period and contemporary.