Overview

"Independência. Esta é a nossa memória", by Mário Bastos (Angola, 2016, 1h45min.)

The documentary Independência was born from the need to preserve the history (and stories) of those who participated in the liberation struggle of Angola. Many are still alive and lucid but few have documented their course or had the opportunity to talk about what they lived outside the family and friends circle. The film was the result of the project Angola - Pathways to Independence, produced by Geração 80 and Associação Tchiweka de Documentação (ATD), an institution dedicated to preserving documents and disseminating the history of that struggle.

Synopsis
On  November 11, 1975 Angola proclaimed independence, 14 years after the beginning of the armed struggle against the Portuguese colonial dominion. Salazar's regime refused any negotiation with the independists, who remained underground, imprisoned or exiled. When almost all Africa celebrated the end of the colonial empires, Angola and the other Portuguese colonies followed a very different destiny. Only after the military coup of 25 April 1974 overthrew the regime did Portugal recognize the right of the peoples of the colonies to self-determination.

The years of struggle evoked in "Independence" determined the course of Angola after 1975. Political choices, internal conflicts and international alliances began to be drawn during the anti-colonial struggle. The main organisations (FNLA and MPLA and, later, UNITA) never made a common front and their contradictions were amplified by the context of the Cold War. Independence was proclaimed already in a warlike atmosphere, but with much emotion and pride, as the film recounts. [Information from Associação Geração 80]

Screening followed by Q&A with:

Maria de Conceição Neto (Historical Consultant, Agostinho Neto University)
Moderator: Iolanda Vasile (CES)

As part of the BLEND project - Desire, Miscegenation and Violence: the now and then of the Portuguese Colonial War (ref. PTDC/IVCANT/6100/2014), the Doctoral Programme "Post-Colonialisms and Global Citizenship" CES/FEUC), with the support of the Foundation for Science and Technology

Support