Arma diplomática e ficção: as mulheres nos filmes da Luta de Libertação da Guiné-Bissau

Abstract

Over the eleven years of the liberation struggle in Guinea-Bissau, several Western filmmakers recorded how the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC) carried out military action against the Portuguese colonial army and simultaneously implemented, in the liberated zones, hospitals, schools, popular courts, and people's warehouses. In the liberated zones' social and political organization, women would have new social functions to activate emancipatory mechanisms and political changes in gender roles. In this article, I aim to discuss women's historical and political representations in these films, juxtaposing them with ethnographic research in Unal, one of the first villages occupied by PAIGC commanders. This juxtaposition will enable the unleashing of a plurality of perspectives in contrast with the uniformed narrative of the political project that PAIGC proposed. It will also reveal unexpected conjectures of social mobility and resistance, triggered by women who lived in the liberated areas, which require further reflection and historical inquiry.

Keywords: Guinea-Bissau; liberation struggle; women; PAIGC; cinema