Sambizanga

Sambizanga (1973)

Domingos is a member of an African liberation movement, arrested by the Portuguese secret police, after bloody events in Angola. His wife goes from a prison station to another, trying in vain to find out where he is.

Date of release
1973-04-26
TMDB
7.2 / 10 (32)
Runtime
1h 42m
Genres
Drama
Director
Sarah Maldoror

Casting

Interesting facts

Sambizanga is a 1972 film directed by Sarah Maldoror and written by Maldoror, Mário Pinto de Andrade, and Maurice Pons, based on the 1961 novella The Real Life of Domingos Xavier by José Luandino Vieira. Set in 1961 during the onset of the Angolan War of Independence, it follows the struggles of Angolan militants involved with the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), an anti-colonial political movement. Maldoror co-wrote the screenplay with her husband, who was a leader within the MPLA. Sambizanga was the first feature film produced in Angola and by any Lusophone African country. Maldoror was the first woman in Africa to direct a feature film.

Production

Sambizanga was based on a 1961 novella by José Luandino Vieira, a white Angolan writer born in Portugal who had served a 11-year prison sentence for his work in the anti-colonial struggle in Angola.

Sambizanga was shot on location in the People's Republic of the Congo over a seven-week period.

Many of the actors in the film were non-professionals who were involved in African anti-colonial movements such as the MPLA and the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC). Domingos de Oliveira, who played Domingos Xavier, was an Angolan exile living in the Congo; while Maria was played by Elisa Andrade, an economist from Cape Verde.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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