Of Westerns, Women, and War: Re-Situating Angolan Cinema and the Nation

Today, evidence of cinematic desuetude in Luanda abounds. No films have been produced locally in at least the past thirteen years. Angola's directorial hopefuls Antonio Ole and Rui Duarte de Carvalho have ceased filmic activity, the former for painting and the latter to continue his trajectory as anthropologist and poet. The once thriving cinemas of Luanda's downtown, with revolutionary nationalist names like the Karl Marx Cinema, the First of May Cinema, and the National Theater are all closed and some even occupied by refugees of the civil war. Video rental clubs abound, signaling the national crisis in a retreat from the sym? bolic gathering of the nation in cinemas (Shohat and Stam 103), to the constitution of other collectivities organized around family, generation, or gender. At the same time, cinemas are sometimes opened for musical concerts, like a series of peace concerts that have toured since 1997 in hopes of mobilizing support for national reconstruction and reconciliation. Lastly, the national assembly where the parliament convenes is housed in what was, during the colonial period, the largest cinema in the city and the symbol of colonial cultural tastes. Following this establishing shot, it becomes possible, even necessary, to think of cinema from something other than a nationalist perspective, that is, from a postcolonial perspec? tive. The concern is then not so much to delineate the films and define the