Sarah Maldoror (19 July 1929 − 13 April 2020) was a French filmmaker of French West Indies descent. She is best known for her feature film ''
Sambizanga
Sambizanga is one of the six urban districts that make up the municipality of Luanda, in the province of Luanda, Angola.
Overview
Sambizanga has a 14.5 km² area and about 244,000 inhabitants. Limited to the west by the Atlantic Ocean, ...
'' (1972) on the
1961–1974 war in
Angola
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, capital = Luanda
, religion =
, religion_year = 2020
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, coordina ...
.
Early life and education
Born Sarah Ducados in 1929 in
Condom, Gers
Condom ( oc, Condòm; ), also known as Condom-en-Armagnac, is a commune in southwestern France in the department of Gers, of which it is a subprefecture.
Geography Localisation
The town of Condom is located in the northern part of the de ...
, the daughter of emigrants from
Guadeloupe, she chose her artist's name in remembrance of ''
Les Chants de Maldoror
''Les Chants de Maldoror'' (''The Songs of Maldoror'') is a French poetic novel, or a long prose poem. It was written and published between 1868 and 1869 by the Comte de Lautréamont, the '' nom de plume'' of the Uruguayan-born French writer Isi ...
'' by
Lautréamont.
She attended a drama school in Paris. Together with her husband, Angolan nationalist
Mário Pinto de Andrade
Mário Coelho Pinto de Andrade (21 August 1928 – 26 August 1990) was an Angolan poet and politician.
Biography
He was born in Golungo Alto, in Portuguese Angola, and studied philosophy at the University of Lisbon and sociology at the Sorb ...
, she received a scholarship and studied film with
Mark Donskoi
Mark Semyonovich Donskoy (russian: Марк Семёнович Донско́й; – 21 March 1981) was a Soviet film director, screenwriter, and studio administrative head.
Biography
Mark Donskoy was born in Odessa in a Jewish family. Durin ...
in Moscow in 1961–62 where she met
Ousmane Sembène
Ousmane Sembène (; 1 January 1923 or 8 January 1923 – 9 June 2007), often credited in the French style as Sembène Ousmane in articles and reference works, was a Senegalese film director, producer and writer. The ''Los Angeles Times'' consider ...
.
(Sarah and
Mário would go on to have two daughters,
Henda Ducados Pinto de Andrade and Annouchka de Andrade.)
Career
After her studies, Maldoror, worked as an assistant on
Gillo Pontecorvo
Gilberto Pontecorvo (; 19 November 1919 – 12 October 2006) was an Italian filmmaker associated with the political cinema movement of the 1960s and 1970s. He is best known for directing the landmark war docudrama ''The Battle of Algiers'' (19 ...
's acclaimed film, ''
The Battle of Algiers
ar, Maʿrakat al-Jazāʾir
, director = Gillo Pontecorvo
, producer = Antonio MusuSaadi Yacef
, writer = Franco Solinas
, story = Franco SolinasGillo Pontecorvo
, starring = Jean MartinSaadi YacefBrahim H ...
'' (1966). She also worked as an assistant to Algerian director Ahmed Lallem.
Maldoror's short film, ''Monangambee'' (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
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, image_map = Algeria (centered orthographic projection).svg
, map_caption =
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, capital = Algiers
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, relig ...
. It tells the story of a poor woman who visits her husband, who is imprisoned in the city of Luanda. The film was selected for the
Director's Fortnight
The Directors' Fortnight (french: Quinzaine des Réalisateurs) is an independent selection of the Cannes Film Festival. It was started in 1969 by the French Directors Guild after the events of May 1968 resulted in cancellation of the Cannes festi ...
at Cannes in 1971, representing Angola.
Her first feature film, ''
Sambizanga
Sambizanga is one of the six urban districts that make up the municipality of Luanda, in the province of Luanda, Angola.
Overview
Sambizanga has a 14.5 km² area and about 244,000 inhabitants. Limited to the west by the Atlantic Ocean, ...
'' (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
The Angolan War of Independence (; 1961–1974), called in Angola the ("Armed Struggle of National Liberation"), began as an uprising against forced cultivation of cotton, and it became a multi-faction struggle for the control of Portugal ...
. ''
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".
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
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quickly ...
during the
COVID-19 pandemic in France.
Awards
* Maldoror won a
Tanit d'or The Tanit d'or is the grand prize of the Carthage Film Festival, hosted annually in Tunisia. The award is named for the lunar goddess of ancient Carthage and takes the shape of her symbol, a triangle surmounted by a horizontal line and a circle.
...
at the 1972
Carthage Film Festival
* Maldoror received the
National Order of Merit (France) from the Government of France
Filmography
*''Monangambé'', 1968
*''Des fusils pour Banta'' (Guns for Banta), 1970
*''Carnaval en Guinée-Bissau'' (Carnival in Guinea-Bissau), 1971
*''
Sambizanga
Sambizanga is one of the six urban districts that make up the municipality of Luanda, in the province of Luanda, Angola.
Overview
Sambizanga has a 14.5 km² area and about 244,000 inhabitants. Limited to the west by the Atlantic Ocean, ...
'', 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
René Depestre (born 29 August 1926, Jacmel, Haiti) is a Haitian poet and former communist activist. He is considered to be one of the most prominent figures in Haitian literature. He lived in Cuba as an exile from the Duvalier regime for ma ...
, poète''
*''L'hôpital de Leningrad'', 1983
*''La littérature tunisienne de la Bibliothèque nationale''
*''Un sénégalias en Normandie''
*''
Robert Doisneau
Robert Doisneau (; 14 April 1912 – 1 April 1994) was a French photographer. From the 1930s, he photographed the streets of Paris. He was a champion of humanist photography and with Henri Cartier-Bresson a pioneer of photojournalism.
Dois ...
, photographe''
*''Le racisme au quotidien'' (Daily life racism), 1983
*''Le passager du Tassili'' (The Tassili passenger), 1987
*''
Aimé Césaire
Aimé Fernand David Césaire (; ; 26 June 1913 – 17 April 2008) was a French poet, author, and politician. He was "one of the founders of the Négritude movement in Francophone literature" and coined the word in French. He founded the Par ...
, le masque des mots'' (Aimé Césaire, word as masks), 1986
*''
Emmanuel Ungaro
Emanuel Ungaro (13 February 1933 – 21 December 2019) was a French fashion designer who founded the eponymous fashion house in 1965.
Early life
Ungaro's Italian father fled to France from Francavilla Fontana of Brindisi province because of the ...
, couturier''
*''
Louis Aragon
Louis Aragon (, , 3 October 1897 – 24 December 1982) was a French poet who was one of the leading voices of the surrealist movement in France. He co-founded with André Breton and Philippe Soupault the surrealist review ''Littérature''. He ...
– 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
*''Sarah Maldoror ou la nostalgie de l’utopie'' by
Anne Laure Folly, France /Togo, 1998.
See also
*
Women's Cinema
Women's cinema primarily describes cinematic works directed (and optionally produced too) by women filmmakers. The works themselves do not have to be stories specifically about women and the target audience can be varied.
It is also a variety of ...
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Maldoror, Sarah
1929 births
2020 deaths
French film directors
French women film directors
French people of Guadeloupean descent
Knights of the Ordre national du Mérite
Deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic in France
People from Gers