''The Two Faces of War'' (''As duas faces da guerra'' in Portuguese) is a 2007 Portuguese documentary film directed by Diana Andringa and Flora Gomes. The film was shot in

Guinea-Bissau Guinea-Bissau ( ; pt, Guiné-Bissau; ff, italic=no, 𞤘𞤭𞤲𞤫 𞤄𞤭𞤧𞤢𞥄𞤱𞤮, Gine-Bisaawo, script=Adlm; Mandinka: ''Gine-Bisawo''), officially the Republic of Guinea-Bissau ( pt, República da Guiné-Bissau, links=no ) ...

Cape Verde , national_anthem = () , official_languages = Portuguese , national_languages = Cape Verdean Creole , capital = Praia , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , demonym ...

and

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...

. The film includes a series of interviews and testimonies of people who lived through the period of the anti-colonial war and liberation in Guinea-Bissau.

Content

The documentary consists of interviews with veterans and leaders from

and

Cape Verde , national_anthem = () , official_languages = Portuguese , national_languages = Cape Verdean Creole , capital = Praia , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , demonym ...

. Those countries lived through the conflict spanning from 1963 to 1974, a conflict between the

PAIGC The African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde ( pt, Partido Africano para a Independência da Guiné e Cabo Verde, PAIGC) is a political party in Guinea-Bissau. Originally formed to peacefully campaign for independence from ...

(African Party for the Independence of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde) and Portuguese troops. In 1995, Diana Andringa, visited the town of Geba as a reporter and there she found a stone half-destroyed in the name of the Portuguese soldiers killed on African soil. This was the starting point for this work. Along with Flora Gomes, they produced a documentary which is the result of the points of view of Portugal and Guiné, about one of the bloodiest conflicts suffered during the

Portuguese Colonial War The Portuguese Colonial War ( pt, Guerra Colonial Portuguesa), also known in Portugal as the Overseas War () or in the former colonies as the War of Liberation (), and also known as the Angolan, Guinea-Bissau and Mozambican War of Independence, ...

. For six weeks, Diana Andringa and Flora Gomes traveled through the regions of Mansoa, Geba, and Guilegar in Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde and Portugal where they collected the testimonies of people who lived through the colonial war. Throughout the documentary we see an homage to

Amílcar Cabral Amílcar Lopes da Costa Cabral (; – ) was a Bissau-Guinean and Cape Verdean agricultural engineer, pan-Africanist, intellectual, poet, theoretician, revolutionary, political organizer, nationalist and diplomat. He was one of Africa's forem ...

, founder of the PAIGC. The testimonies show the magnitude of Cabral who, despite being in the middle of the conflict between the two countries, has never ceased to feel to the Portuguese people as something of their own. It is the "paired adventure" of independence war in former colonies and the rise of democracy in Portugal that Andringa and Flora want to tell through the voices of those who lived through the conflict. Diana Andringa and Flora Gomes are the narrators of the documentary. The soundtrack is made up of music from Portuguese, Guinea and Cape Verde from the featured period.

External links

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Essay on the film

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Two Faces Of War Documentary films about African resistance to colonialism Portuguese Colonial War 20th century in Cape Verde 2007 films Films set in Cape Verde Films set in Guinea-Bissau Films set in Portugal Documentary films about war Films shot in Cape Verde Films shot in Portugal

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References