What can we win when we lose? Conversations facing archival images
The project Off the Field: Archives of Mozambican Cinema, in collaboration with the Radio Zero, proposes a live radio program in three sessions in the CarpeDiem Arte e Pesquisa, Bairro Alto, in Lisbon.
Session 1, Wednesday, January the 18th, 2012 | www.radiozero.pt |, from 3:03 to 3:40 p.m.
Doctor Maria Paula Meneses is Mozambican and a researcher at the Centre for Social Studies of the University of Coimbra. “The fight goes on” became the conquest slogan of the Mozambican Revolution, but is also the evidence of a current agenda. After the visioning of a movie from the Mozambican Movie Archive, the conversation will focus in the way by which that agenda revealed itself in the constitution of the national history and in the national production of cinema after the independence.
Session 2, Thursday, January 19th, 2012 | www.radiozero.pt |, from 3:03 to 3:40 p.m.
Doctor Teresa Almeida is the person responsible for the archives in the Combatants League. She has been working for 40 years in this institution, located a few meters away from the old Palácio Pombal, where is now set the project Off the Field: Archives of Mozambican Cinema. She received an invitation to visit the facilities and to bring a few short films from the League Archives collection, which she is building in close collaboration with former-combatants. The conversation will reveal the universe of war experiences which Doctor Teresa Almeida manages, archives and assimilates in her daily routine.
Session 3, Friday, January the 20th, 2012 | www.radiozero.pt |, from 3:03 to 3:40 p.m.
This session is dedicated to re-utilizing archival materials. The movie directors Fernando Matos Silva and António Escudeiro will bring with them two movies made over the Independence of Guinea-Bissau, Acto dos Feitos na Guiné (1980) and Guiné-Bissau: Independência (1977). The idea is to integrate on the radio emission some of the topics that may arise as a consequence of the movies’ visioning. Catarina Simão and Gonçalo Tocha (director of É na Terra, não é na Lua, of 2011), will deal with the subject from their own works’ perspective.
Cycle 1961: The Year of all the Dangers
From February 19th to Dezember 10th, 2011, Picoas Plaza, Rua de Viriato 13, Lj 117/118, CES-Lisbon
Settings
1961 was, for the Salazar’s regime, the year of all dangers, proving to have been the dictator’s annus horribilis. In different contexts several situations would brand this year, a sign of the end of the Portuguese colonial-fascist regime. Because one of the subjects of CES sets the institution to deepen the knowledge over the Portuguese expression territories – and their historical relations –, this sessions will strive so that a reflexion about territories united through many histories and fights can be accomplished.
Conference - Archives of Silence: Secret Alliances of Colonial War
November 29th, 2011, 10 a.m, Room 1, CES-Coimbra
Settings
50 years went by since the beginning of Portuguese Colonial War. The very subject – Colonial War – has been facing new revelations arising debates over the meanings of this war and of nationalist fights leading to independency processes in the mid-1970. To question the colonial means to raise several questions, in the former imperial metropolitan space as well as in the various colonized contexts. This relation forces us to rethink time in history, as well as history itself. The fight for independence in Angola, Guinea and Mozambique was intimately linked to other geopolitical processes, to support from the African continent and to the persistence of fascism in Portugal. Yet, much remains to be told about the Colonial War and its geostrategic implications in the context of the Cold War. The rising polemics associated with this conflict opposes, nevertheless, to the slow rhythm of the constitution of academic knowledge. This colloquium sets to cross sights and perspectives over the last chapter of Portuguese colonial history, uncovering new paths for a deeper analysis of the several subjects and narratives incarcerated by this violent process, giving voice to individuals from different backgrounds. It is intended, likewise, to deepen the knowledge over the contours and implications of the Alcora Exercise, an alliance never publicly acknowledged which Portugal has set with South Africa and Rhodesia in 1970 in order to sustain the fight with nationalist movements in Colonial War. In this sense, the alliance established by the Alcora Exercise offers important elements to confront already established perspectives over the Colonial War and for a better understanding of its consequences.
Debates and Movie Sessions: Encounters with History
March 22nd to July 19th, 2011, 5:30 p.m., Mosteiro de Santa Clara-a-Velha; Casa das Artes (Ass. Fila K)
Settings
The 1960’s gave birth to a new political moment in Africa. Nevertheless, transitions to independencies where accompanied, in several cases, by situations of extreme violence, a reflection either of the political complexity present, as of the imperial intolerance. It is a goal of this cycle (first semester of 2011) to watch and discuss these movies as a political testimony for the building of African independencies’ project, setting paths for a deeper analysis of the various subjects that these “encounters with history” seek to rescue.
Workshop – Archives of Silence: Debris and Memories of the Empire
June 16th and 17th, 2011, Picoas Plaza, Rua de Viriato 13, Lj 117/118, CES-Lisbon
Abstract
The theme of Colonial War has been offering new revelations giving rise to debates over the meaning of this war, as well as over nationalist fights associated with the processes of independencies in the mid-1970. To question the colonial means to raise several questions, either in former imperial metropolitan spaces as in relation with the various colonized contexts. The fight for independence in Angola, Guinea and Mozambique was intimately connected to other geopolitical processes, to supports from the African continent and to the fight against fascism in Portugal. This anti-colonial endeavour involved the rejection of racial discrimination, of the frontiers designed by imperialism, and a gathering of efforts in order to resist the colonial fascist oppression, transforming them in a single cause against a common oppressor. This relation forces us to rethink time in history and history itself. The rising number of polemics associated with this conflict clashes, though, with the slow rhythm of the constitution of academic knowledge. This workshop/course seeks to cross sights and perspectives over the last chapter of Portuguese colonial history, uncovering new paths for a deeper analysis of the several subjects and narratives incarcerated by this violent process, giving voice to individuals from different backgrounds.
Workshop: Who is the Enemy? Anatomy of Revolutionary Wars
January 18th, 2013, Picoas Plaza, R. Tomás Ribeiro,65, CES-Lisboa
Settings
This one day workshop will deal with the centrality of the speech about the ‘enemy’, at the construction analysis level, in societies whose recent history is branded by episodes of extreme violence. Merging theoretical and methodological problematics, and backed by nationalist writings, it seeks to widen the reading over how the production of knowledge, cultures and legal systems, politics and the fight for the human rights are being (re)constructed in the African continent nowadays.
International Seminar: Violence, memories and justice in present times
May 20 and 21, 2013
This international Seminar intends to be an interdisciplinary location to widen the discussion and critical thinking about the justice and national reconciliation settings at a national and regional scale, reporting, in a plural perspective, the context, historical processes, the multiplicity of actors and political projects involved.
