Sarah Maldoror
Sarah Maldoror | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Sarah Ducados 19 July 1929 Condom, France |
| Died | 13 April 2020 (aged 90) Fontenay-lès-Briis, France |
| Occupation(s) | Film director, writer |
| Notable work | Sambizanga (1972) |
Sarah Maldoror (19 July 1929 − 13 April 2020)[1] was a French filmmaker of French West Indies descent. She is best known for her feature film Sambizanga (1972) on the 1961–1974 war in Angola.[2]
Early life and education[edit]
Born Sarah Ducados in 1929 in Condom, Gers, she was one of four children in her family. Her father was a black Frenchman from Guadeloupe. After his death when she was young, her widowed mother struggled to support their family with her work as a maid. At times the girl lived in an orphanage.
Move to Paris[edit]
By the 1950s Ducados had moved to Paris, where she became involved in artistic circles. While studying drama, she and a group of other black students formed a theatre compnay called Les Griots. They gave readings of Cesaire and produced Huis Clos, by Sartre, as well as by other white Europeans.
Paris was also a center for activists for African independence. In this period she chose her artist's name from Les Chants de Maldoror by Lautréamont. This was the pseudonym of Isidore Ducasse, a French-Uruguayan.
About 1956 she met poet and Angolan nationalist Mário Pinto de Andrade, who had studied in Lisbon. They became "partners for life."
In 1958 she persuaded Jean Genet to give Les Griots first rights to perform his new play, Les Negres, to be directed Roger Blin, actor and theater director.
Her coup captured the attention of intellectuals and artists. When the production opened in 1959, Le Monde described it as an "exciting work of the season."
Maldoror and Andrade then focused on activism in Africa. They were invited to Guinea-Conakry by its new leader, who had helped it gain independence.
There Maldoror was given a scholarship to study film at the Gerasimov Insitute in Moscow. She worked with Mark Donskoi in 1961–62, and also met Ousmane Sembène, notable in African cinema.[3] (Sarah and Mário would go on to have two daughters, Henda Ducados Pinto de Andrade and Annouchka de Andrade.[4])
Career[edit]
After her studies, Maldoror, worked as an assistant on Gillo Pontecorvo's acclaimed film, The Battle of Algiers (1966).[5] She also worked as an assistant to Algerian director Ahmed Lallem.
Maldoror's short film, Monangambée (1968), was set in Angola, based on a story by Angolan writer José Luandino Vieira. The title of this 17-minute film, Monangambée, refers to the call used by Angolan anti-colonial activists to signal a village meeting. The film was shot with amateur actors in Algeria. It tells the story of a poor woman who visits her husband, who is imprisoned in the city of Luanda.[6] The film was selected for the Director's Fortnight at Cannes in 1971, representing Angola.[7][8]
Her first feature film, Sambizanga (1972), was also based on a story by Vieira (A vida verdadeira de Domingos Xavier), and is set in 1961 at the onset of the Angolan War of Independence. Guardian film writer Mark Cousins included Sambizanga in a 2012 list of the ten best African films, calling it "as bold, as well-lit as Caravaggio paintings".[9]
Maldoror is one of the first women to direct a feature film in Africa; therefore, her work is often included in studies of the role of African women in African cinema.
Maldoror died on 13 April 2020, at the age of 90, from COVID-19 complications during the COVID-19 pandemic in France.[10]
Awards[edit]
- Maldoror won a Tanit d'or at the 1972 Carthage Film Festival
- Maldoror received the National Order of Merit (France) from the Government of France[11]
Filmography[edit]
- Monangambé, 1968
- Des fusils pour Banta (Guns for Banta), 1970
- Carnaval en Guinée-Bissau (Carnival in Guinea-Bissau), 1971
- Sambizanga, 1972
- Un carneval dans le Sahel (Carnival in Sahel), 1977
- Folgo, Ile de Feu
- Et les chiens se taisaient (And the dogs kept silent)
- Un homme, une terre (A man, a country)
- La Basilique de Saint-Denis
- Un dessert pour Constance, 1983
- Le cimetière du Père Lachaise
- Miro
- Lauren
- Robert Lapoujade, peintre
- Toto Bissainthe, Chanteuse
- René Depestre, poète
- L'hôpital de Leningrad, 1983
- La littérature tunisienne de la Bibliothèque nationale
- Un sénégalias en Normandie
- Robert Doisneau, photographe
- Le racisme au quotidien (Everyday racism), 1983
- Le passager du Tassili (The Tassili passenger), 1987
- Aimé Césaire, le masque des mots (Aimé Césaire, the mask of words), 1986
- Emmanuel Ungaro, couturier
- Louis Aragon – Un masque à Paris
- Vlady, peintre
- Léon G. Damas, 1995
- L'enfant-cinéma, 1997
- La tribu du bois de l'é (In the time of people)
Documentary about Sarah Maldoror[edit]
- Sarah Maldoror ou la nostalgie de l’utopie by Anne Laure Folly, France /Togo, 1998.
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^ Mourinha, Jorge; Lucinda Canelas (13 April 2020). "Morreu Sarah Maldoror, uma pioneira do cinema africano". PÚBLICO.
- ^ "Angola: Brutality Betrayal". Village Voice. 6 December 1973. Retrieved 5 August 2010.[permanent dead link]
- ^ "Maldoror". www.africanwomenincinema.org. Archived from the original on 24 July 2011. Retrieved 14 April 2020.
- ^ "Sarah Maldoror, Prémio de Cultura e Artes 2020 de Angola". VOA (in Portuguese). 22 November 2020. Retrieved 13 September 2021.
- ^ Sayre, Nora (22 November 1973). "Movie Review – Sambizanga (1973)". The New York Times. Retrieved 29 January 2016.
- ^ Dembrow, Michael. "Sambizanga and Sarah Maldoror". Archived from the original on 15 March 2012. Retrieved 22 August 2012.
- ^ "Sambizanga Review". MUBI. Retrieved 22 August 2012.
- ^ "Monangambee – Quinzaine 1971 / Court métrage". Quinzaine des Réalisateurs.
- ^ Cousins, Mark (3 September 2012). "African cinema: ten of the best". The Guardian.
- ^ "Sarah Maldoror, pionnière du cinéma panafricain, décède du coronavirus". Outre-mer la 1ère (in French). 13 April 2020.
- ^ "Remise de l'ordre national du mérite à Sarah Maldoror par Frédéric Mitterand". Vimeo. 27 July 2011. Retrieved 22 August 2012.
External links[edit]
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| People | |
| Other | |
