Images and (counter-) imagery of Portugal’s colonial past in Mozambique – II part

With Giulio Fugazzotto (Zaprduder magazine), Carlo Podaliri (independent archivist), Mario Carmelo Lanzafame (independent archivist)

Moderated by: Ilaria Ferretti (Fondazione Home Movies)

As a counterpoint to the narration and private images, documents (films, photographs, and graphics) from the Franco Cigarini Archive and the Giuseppe Soncini and Bruna Ganapini Archive, both held by the Panizzi Library in Reggio Emilia, will be shown. Starting in the 1970s, several institutional ties between Reggio Emilia and the Mozambican liberation front (Frente de Libertação de Moçambique – FRELIMO) were established, thanks to Giuseppe Soncini, then director of Arcispedale Santa Maria Nuova hospital. Such connection was motivated by a desire to provide support and health training to the FRELIMO and would eventually lead to the planning of the first official trip by a political delegation to the lands of free Mozambique. In August 1972, the delegation, which included politicians and journalists, was joined by Franco Cigarini, a former Italian partisan, UNITELEFILM operator, and official photographer and cameraman for the Municipality of Reggio Emilia. Franco Cigarini documented the different stages of the trip with his 16mm Bolex camera, taking photographs and recording sounds, interviews, and songs on magnetic tape. The result was a documentary entitled 10 Days with the Guerrillas of Free Mozambique, a priceless testimony to the role of images in the complex historical, cultural, and political process known as “liberation.” However, the documentary is only part of the rich record to be found in the archival collections, which span from the 1970s to the 1980s, when Mozambique became an independent nation.

In collaboration with Biblioteca Amilcar Cabral