AFRICAN CLASSICS -
SARAH MALDOROR'S CARNIVAL TRILOGY
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SARAH MALDOROR'S CARNIVAL TRILOGY
SATURDAY 07. NOVEMBER 2026 | 14H30
Domgasse 14, 4020 Linz
Free entry!
A few years after Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau gained independence from Portuguese colonial rule, French filmmaker Sarah Maldoror (1929–2020) made three short films about carnival in the newly independent nations, with support from the revolutionary PAIGC government. Though never conceived as a formal trilogy, the films share a common thread: carnival not simply as celebration, but as a space where questions of identity, Blackness, and resistance to colonialism and racism come into focus — through costume, color, movement, music, and crowd.
Maldoror's work has found renewed international attention through restoration efforts led by her daughters, Annouchka de Andrade and Henda Ducados. The restored trilogy premiered at Il Cinema Ritrovato in Bologna in 2024 — a rare chance to now see these films on the big screen.
with an introduction by Nadia Denton
FOGO, L'ÎLE DE FEU
Sarah Maldoror, 1979, France, Cape Verde, 34 min, French with English subtitles
On the volcanic island of Fogo, in Cape Verde, the celebration of a legendary story inherited from the Portuguese colonizers continues on May 1st. On this rocky, waterless and wind-battered island, the legend gives rise to courtly jousts and horse races that are much appreciated by the locals.
CARNAVAL DANS LE SAHEL
Sarah Maldoror, 1979, France, Cape Verde, 28 min, no dialogue
The filmmaker films the preparations for the festival and the parade in Mindelo. Without any commentary, the viewer is carried away by the power of the images, and the pride of the Cape Verdeans. In the film, culture is a way of reappropriating history, the foundation of national liberation and a means of resisting colonial domination.
À BISSAU LE CARNAVAL
Sarah Maldoror, 1980, France, Guinea-Bissau, 18 min, French with English subtitles
Since Guinea-Bissau gained independence in 1974 after five centuries of Portuguese colonization, the people of the country have celebrated their annual carnival in Bissau, the country’s capital. In the early days, the festival was a place of rejoicing only for the colonists. But little by little, the people of Bissau-Guinea began to appropriate this popular event as a means of collectively constructing an imaginary world that reversed the relations of colonial domination.
Filmstills: © Anouchka de Andrade and Henda Ducados
Sarah Maldoror Portraits: © BJ Nikolaisen / © C Lipinska
Sarah Maldoror was born in 1939 in Candou, France. A Guadeloupean of African descent, she is respectfully regarded as the matriarch of African cinema; she was the first woman of color to make a feature film and stands as a foundational figure in anti-colonial, Pan-African, and feminist filmmaking. Over her multi-decade career, she directed 42 films, spanning feature-length narratives, short films, and documentaries. For her, filmmaking was a weapon for struggle and liberation from the very beginning of her experiences in cinema. Her 1968 debut film Monagambée, which examines torture techniques used by the French in the Algerian war, was selected for the Quinzaine des réalisateurs at Cannes in 1971. The following year she made her emblematic œuvre, Sambizanga, which relates a woman’s experience during the Angola liberation struggle. The film shared the prestigious Tanit d’Or prize at the Carthage Film Festival that same year. Pioneer, trailblazer, mentor, Sarah Maldoror had this to say in an interview:
African women must be everywhere. They must be in the images, behind the camera, in the editing room and involved in every stage of the making of a film. They must be the ones to talk about their problems.
Maldoror passed away in France in April 2020, at the age of 90.
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