Images of Africa ? Portuguese films and documentaries related to the former colonies in Africa ( first half of the 20 th century )

This paper analyses films and documentaries produced in Portugal based or inspired on the former African colonies. During the Estado Novo, the creation of a positive image of the “empire” and of the colonial policy led to the prohibition of films that depicted physical abuse of African-origin individuals, the struggle between “white” (colonisers) and “black” (colonised), movements that fought for the ascension of the Afro-American population in the U.S.A. or exalted pacifist or antimilitarist concepts. Many documentaries emphasise Africa’s potential (natural and human). Some deal with the creation of structures that would allow the education and evangelization of the African people, while others try to portray its “uses and customs”. Others show evidence of the African people’s work strength in the construction of a promising future. That work is always guided by the “white”, that is, the technical knowledge of the “white” is added to the strength of the African. Africans are represented as examples of a unified whole (they are all called “indígenas”), but there is an attempt to identify distinctive characteristics between them. Images that denote an idea of modernization, in cities such as Luanda or Lourenço Marques, overshadow the “colonised”. These films are often a tool of propaganda rather than a means of information, or an ethnographical document, and their objective is to convey a colonial conscience.


Introduction
This text 1 intends to present an analysis of the films and documentaries I have viewed in the Arquivo Nacional das Imagens em Movimento (ANIM) archive 2 , a department of Cinemateca Portuguesa -Museu do Cinema, headquartered in Freixial, Bucelas, a few miles from Lisbon.In this documentation, produced in the first half of the 20 th century, in Portugal, the background is the former colonies or it has been inspired by them.My initial objective was to try to understand which images of the colonies and its inhabitants were conveyed and which were its contexts.This analysis is not aimed at highlighting the 1 A previous version of this text was presented at the V Congresso de Estudos Africanos no Mundo Ibérico -África: compreender trajetos, olhar o futuro (V Congress on African Studies in the Iberian World -Africa: understanding pathways, an outlook towards the future) -in the panel "Representações sociais e formas de arte" (Social representations and art forms), as part of the section "Patrimónios Culturais" (Cultural Legacies), on May 6 th 2006 at the University of Beira Interior.This work was carried out with the support of the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (SFRH/BM/2194/2000) and of the Instituto de Ciências Sociais (UID/SOC/50012/2013). 2 For further details on these and other films, see Matos (2013).
an analysis he based on the Soviet cinema and the US anti-Nazi films of 1939-43. In Marc Ferro's view (1987), cinema is often "a counter-analysis of society"; in other words, although this may not be the initial intention, a film brings together elements which allow us to analyse the context of the society it was produced in, and its value lies both in what it shows and in what it hides.On the other hand, it can be an "agent of history", seeking to influence the spectator and send him a message, assuming its role as an ideological or propagandistic film, therefore becoming an important source.As such, there seems to have been a direct link between cinematic output on the one hand, and the history of Portugal and social aspects relative to colonial representations on the other.
Producing 6 films in a country of limited resources was a major undertaking.But investment was being made in this new "instrument for the diffusion of ideas", whose reach, as António Lopes Ribeiro (1933) noted, could exceed that of the newspapers and radio.Not only was it useful for recording important events and facts, cinema could also be used for propaganda purposes.Conceiving cinema primarily as a medium of propaganda (Ferro, 1931(Ferro, , 1950)), the Estado Novo, in the person of individuals like António Ferro, decided to endow film production structures, and in 1935, the Secretariado de Propaganda Nacional (SPN) launched its "travelling cinema".From this moment on, cinema was in the hands of the SPN 7 under the direction of António Ferro.When the SPN was re-named Secretariado Nacional de Informação, Cultura Popular e Turismo (SNI) in 1944, it continued to sponsor cinematic output and also introduced official prizes for cinema.António Ferro was assisted in his work by Lopes Ribeiro 8 (1908-1995), a "modernist" supporter of Salazarism, and Leitão de Barros (1896Barros ( -1967)), the regime's official set designer at various events.Like the official exhibitions, films were advertised as cheap and easy ways to travel (O Planalto, 1931, no. 43, p. 12).Documentary film played therefore a significant role in the cultural and scientific agendas of many institutions9 . 6Among the production companies were Invicta Film, which used French technology, and Tobis Portuguesa, launched in 1933 by Germans using the Tobis Klang Film system.Tobis was the first production company in Portugal to have a studio equipped for sound film.The Secretariado de Propaganda Nacional (SPN), the Sociedade Portuguesa de Atualidades Cinematográficas (SPAC) and the Agência Geral das Colónias (AGC), via the "Cinegraphic Missions", were also active in film production.
7 Among the documentaries produced by the SPN were two films of the presidential journeys to Africa, one of the Exhibition of the Portuguese World, and one of the journey of Cardinal Cerejeira to Africa.In 1935 the travelling cinema initiative is started.From 1937 to 1947, the travelling cinema initiative organized "2,235 screenings attended by 2,304,570 persons, and many screenings were opened by 1,585 guest speakers from the localities which enthusiastically took up the initiative" and "for six months in 1946, the SNI's Travelling Cinema toured the Azores archipelago, holding 116 screenings attended by 230,700 spectators, with 70 guest speakers".The SNI issued programmes to "all provincial bodies", such as "syndicates, hospitals, barracks, schools, factories, parish councils" (Secretariado Nacional de Informação, 1948). 8L. Ribeiro directed dramas on political (A Revolução de Maio [1937]) and colonial (Feitiço do Império [1940]) fiction themes, and also made documentaries on regime initiatives with major media impact -exhibitions, state visits to the colonies and other events.Portugal na Exposição de Paris de 1937Paris de (1942) ) and O Cortejo Histórico de Lisboa (1947), produced by the Lisbon City Council and organized as part of the commemorations of the "8 th Centenary of the Conquest of Lisbon", portray moments captured by a director who was au fait with the world of cinema outside of Portugal and who knew Soviet directors who were familiarized with propaganda, including Serguei Eisenstein and Dziga Vertov (Matos-Cruz & Antunes, 1997).
Images of Africa?Portuguese films and documentaries related to the former colonies in Africa (first half of the 20th century) .Patrícia Ferraz de Matos Within the scope of the first experiments, we can highlight the one by Ernesto de Albuquerque, in 190910 , on the cacao culture in São Tomé e Príncipe (A Cultura do Cacau), and the one by Manuel Antunes Amor in the "Far East" (Matos-Cruz & Antunes, 1997, p. 59), specifically in Macao (since 1924) and in Goa (since 1930) (Pimentel, 2002, pp. 24-25).Still during this phase, in 1929, Augusto Seara, working for the army cinematography department (Serviços Cinematográficos do Exército), made the documentary Por Terras de Ébano on the "ethnography" and "scenery" of Guinea and São Tomé e Príncipe11 .In 1930 António Antunes da Mata and his cameraman José César de Sá made several films as part of the Missão Cinematográfica a Angola (Ribeiro, 1973, p. 21) and directed several documentaries12 ; some of these were later distributed and commercially explored.Another team, named Brigada Cinematográfica Portuguesa, led by Fernandes Tomaz, was aimed at Mozambique, also passing through São Tomé e Príncipe; this team directed documentaries 13 and edited a film with the title A Colónia de Moçambique, viewed at the Paris International Colonial Exhibition in 1931 (Pimentel, 2002, p. 27).It should be noted that a part, however small, of the documentaries produced during this phase was presented in some international exhibitions, in the late 1920s and early 1930s, in which Portugal took part (Pimentel, 2002, pp. 26-27).As far as I was able to ascertain, no documentaries were made in this period on Cape Verde or Timor.Later, in April 1937, the colonial minister Francisco Vieira Machado created the Missão Cinegráfica às Colónias de África (MCCA) in an attempt to stimulate the production of propaganda and documentary films on colonization, with the support of the Agência Geral das Colónias (AGC), directed at the time by Júlio Cayolla. 14ith the MCCA15 came a more detailed and comprehensive tour of the colonies by a private guilds, and to the Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa for its "Colony Week".They were also sent to Rio de Janeiro for screening during the "Portuguese Fortnight" organized by the newspaper O Século.
Images of Africa?Portuguese films and documentaries related to the former colonies in Africa (first half of the 20th century) .Patrícia Ferraz de Matos Portuguese film crew 16 .Between February and October 1938, its itinerary took in Madeira, Cape Verde, Guinea, São Tomé e Príncipe, Angola and Mozambique.The documentaries filmed during this tour were still being released in 1946.The aim of the mission17 was to make one feature-length documentary and several smaller documentaries on each of the African colonies; in these the objective was to portray not only the landscape, the wildlife and the batuques, but also what was considered to be the "civilized" side of Africa, with its large, rapidly growing cities.

Journeys to the african colonies
Some of the documentaries made during the colonial journeys merit special examination.One film, I Cruzeiro de Férias às Colónias do Ocidente (1936), directed by Manuel Alves San-Payo, was made on the initiative of the magazine O Mundo Português on the "Holiday Cruise" to Cape Verde, Guinea, São Tomé e Príncipe and Angola organized by the AGC.In this film we see the Natives livening up the society events of the colonists with their batuques or "traditional" dances.A Viagem de Sua Eminência o Cardeal Patriarca de Lisboa, by Lopes Ribeiro, was made in 1944.It documented the voyage of Cardinal Gonçalves Cerejeira on board of the Serpa Pinto for the consecration of the new cathedral of Lourenço Marques (currently Maputo).The cardinal's voyage took him to Madeira (Funchal), São Tomé e Príncipe and Angola (Luanda and Lobito), and he also visited several places in Mozambique.
Viagem do Chefe de Estado às Colónias de Angola e São Tomé e Príncipe 18 (1939), by Lopes Ribeiro, was an account of President Óscar Carmona's visit to Angola, São Tomé e Príncipe and Madeira, right from the day of departure on 11 July 1938.The President visited a number of plantations (Esperança, Sundy, Rio de Ouro, Monte Café and Água Izé, among others).An attentive viewing of this film gives the impression that every aspect of the reception given to Carmona had been prepared in advance by the settlers -the festooned streets, ceremonies, salutations and manifestations of "affection and respect" (narrator).Indigenous chiefs and Africans of higher social standing, like the Congolese king Pedro V, also saluted Carmona, representing, according to the film, "those who 400 years ago for ever accepted to loyally serve the sovereignty of Portugal".The enthusiasm side by side with Feitiço do Império (1940).However, although previously to the Estado Novo period  there was already an interest in recording elements from the colonies and its potentials, namely through the Agência Geral das Colónias itself, created in 1924, it is my view that this and other cases after it, integrated in specific missions and evoked by the author (Pimentel, 2002), are not incorporated in a movement that can be matched to the one promoted by MCCA.
Images of Africa?Portuguese films and documentaries related to the former colonies in Africa (first half of the 20th century) .Patrícia Ferraz de Matos with which Carmona is welcomed is given visual expression in the banners which decorate the streets; clearly the message is that the Natives wanted the Portuguese presence to be maintained in Africa.In Cabinda we see banners with slogans reading "We won't sell, we won't give up, we won't lease and we won't share our colonies".
On the other hand, the religious element is much in evidence too.We see the construction of chapels and churches, and the African Natives going to mass.We see the "Chapel of Our Lady of Nazaré" and the "Open-air Mass in the Fort of S. Miguel" (Angola) attended by Natives who for the most part are clothed and shod in European style; they are separated from the White worshippers, however, by a rope marking the line they should not overstep.Significantly, this barrier between settlers and Natives exists in, of all places, one where surely no distinction should exist.According to the narrator, the Natives seem to acknowledge the "benefits of our civilizing action", for they have come thousands of kilometres on horseback or on foot, from the "confines of the Cuamato and the Cuanhame", to take part in the "procession of Indígenas of the province of Huíla".
All this offered a good reason for Carmona's visit to be repeated the following year.His return was documented in Paulo de Brito Aranha's A Segunda Viagem Triunfal (1939), distributed by the SPN.Carmona was accompanied by his colonial minister, and his journey took in the Portuguese East African territories, Cape Verde, São Tomé e Príncipe, Angola (Luanda) and also the Union of South Africa.The highlight of this documentary is the "allegorical procession" in honour of the Head of State in Lourenço Marques.In the procession we see a series of allegorical floats with the figures of Adamastor, Bartolomeu Dias and the ships of Vasco da Gama; the float on the religious missions is flanked by female missionaries and the float named "Occupation", brings an effigy of Mouzinho de Albuquerque.Other floats illustrate the goods produced in the colony, highlighting the income they generated.At the end comes a parade representing the evolution of transport "from the old machimba [litter] to the modern aeroplane".Carmona also visited South Africa.From what the documentary shows us of this country, it is a world away from the Portuguese colonies of the same period in its greater wealth and development.

Incentive to the "White" colonization of Africa
The incentive to "white colonisation" 19 in Africa is approached in the documentary No País das Laurentinas (Colonos) (1934), by Ismael da Costa, and in the fiction film Feitiço do Império (1940), by Lopes Ribeiro.This documentary, dedicated equally to "old" and "new" settlers, shows specimens of the former whose distinctive characteristics are their 19 The colonies are also mentioned in films not ostensibly on "imperial" themes.One example is Cantiga da Rua (1949), by Henrique Campos.In this film we witness a conversation on the colonies and which effectively conveys the different ideas that the Portuguese had of the colonies: some thought it was hard, "back-breaking work" in the colonies, while for others the "Whites" in Africa did nothing -and neither did they have to, for the "Blacks" worked for them.In Africa, the one who was "good for work" was the "Black man": "-The overseer shouts and the Black gets down to some good hard graft" while the plantation owner watches the others working.Note: the terms in quotes (and translated in the present document) were the ones actually used in the film.
Images of Africa?Portuguese films and documentaries related to the former colonies in Africa (first half of the 20th century) .Patrícia Ferraz de Matos "rude health", "joy" and "lucidity", their success in life and work 20 ; the setting is Mozambique, with most scenes shot in the Associação dos Velhos Colonos complex.At one point the film shows the "Laurentinas" -European girls in identical dress, the "Marias of Portugal", "our faithful and ... comely allies", represented by young women dressed in traditional Portuguese costumes.Next stop, as the intertitle informs us, is the "Taj Mahal, the Raja and his court".We now see some young people with vaguely Asian facial features and apparel, and finally "a group of little dark girls" with Asian features, and the "porcelains of China", as some Chinese girls are called.The constant prowling camera seems intent on showing all the diversity of the "types" of female beauty to be found in the "empire", and yet there are no African women among them.The ideal of beauty is exemplified only by European and Asian women.In this film, the emphasis is very much on feminine beauty, a beauty which is exoticized and celebrated for its diversity, whether the women in question were European or Asian.
Similarly, but in the domain of fictional work, Feitiço do Império 21 taps into the fascination for Africa and the "empire", represented by the exoticism of the African depicted on the poster of the film (Figure 1).It was premiered in 1940 in Lisbon's Eden Theatre, in the presence of the heads of State and government; the screenplay was by Lopes Ribeiro, based on the book of the same title which won the competition organized by the AGC (Júnior, 1940).Its objective was to show the "Portuguese Colonial Empire" in all its allure and fascination, and thereby to encourage the Portuguese to emigrate to Africa instead of America (United States and Brazil).It also evidenced the unity of the "Portuguese world" at a time when the country's overseas possessions were under threat from other colonial powers.The film is set in the United States, Lisbon and Africa (Guinea, Angola and Mozambique), with brief interludes in Madeira, Cape Verde and São Tomé e Príncipe.It is a mixture of fiction and documentary, as some of its footage has its origins in the work of the MCCA.The plot revolves around a character named Francisco Morais (FM), a Portuguese immigrant in the United States who has not forgotten his love for his native country.The same cannot be said of his son, Luís Morais (LM), who wants to become a naturalized American.But before Luís takes this step, his father convinces him to go on a hunting expedition in Angola.This voyage takes Luís to Lisbon, Guinea, São Tomé e Príncipe and Mozambique, where his "Portugueseness" and "enchantment with the empire" end up influencing him into his affection for the "Portuguese empire". 20Travel in the several spaces of the Portuguese colonial empire was encouraged through the colonial propaganda and measures promoted by the government.On this subject, see Matos, 2016.   Feitiço do império is one of eight feature-length dramas directed by Lopes Ribeiro between 1934 and1959.For many years its whereabouts were unknown.Recently, a nitrate negative of the film was discovered, but this had no soundtrack and was, moreover, incomplete.The first of its fifteen reels was missing, comprising some 15 minutes (400 metres) of film.For this reason Matos-Cruz decided to publish the shooting script and the dialogues as they appear in the original manuscript.All the quoted excerpts of dialogue are from the film as viewed.Later on, I confirmed based on the script that the intertitles and some data did not match, but this may be due to changes that were not featured in the film.This film depicts the Natives represented in a number of guises: as employees of the settlers (Figure 2), running errands, carrying trunks, working in homesteads, plantations and factories, but also as participants in rituals and dances, practising military manoeuvres, such as war attacks and battles.LM's uncle lives in Angola and has an employee, named Brás, who runs errands and exemplifies the settlers' Native employee, who can already be assimilated, is loyal to his colonist employer, in such that he will give his life for him.Brás is protective of LM, and his friend Vitorino refers to him as a "dedicated Black".Amid the mass of "Blacks", distinctions are made: between the pretos calcinhas (who wear clothes) and the pretos do mato (who live in the bush).Feitiço do Império also has a strong documentary component, with Native dances, "warrior" folklore, Black people at work, and "heathen rituals or villages".It made a major impact on the viewing public, but for those whose knowledge of Africa extended beyond the confines of Luanda and Lourenço Marques -as I personally confirmed in various interviews with individuals who cooperated with the Portuguese colonial administration -, the film must have seemed an over-romanticized fantasy.

Exhibitions and other events in metropolitan Portugal
The major exhibitions and their attractions contributed to the construction of a collective memory which could be fixed in photographs, postcards and films.The presence of the Natives from various Portuguese colonies participating in the exhibitions is a major feature in the films of these exhibitions, with the Natives shown naked or clothed in animal products such as plumage, hides, furs and bones.These films served to advertise the exhibition as it was happening, to relive it once it had finished, and to document it for those who had never visited it in the first place.Some included footage from the documentaries made in Africa.Documentaries of exhibitions held outside Portugal include Portugal na Exposição de Paris de 1937Paris de (1942) ) and Portugal na Exposição de Bruxelas (1958), both by Lopes Ribeiro.Two films were made on the subject of the 1932 Industrial Exhibition of Lisbon: Guiné, Aldeia Indígena em Lisboa (1932) and África em Lisboa -Os Indígenas da Guiné na Grande Exposição Industrial Portuguesa (1932), by Salazar Diniz and Raul Reis.
In the first, we see that the Guineans brought to the exhibition were confined to a makeshift village of eight huts.In this village were contained one prince, one princess, four chieftains, one impedido22 and another thirty-nine people, plus chicken, pigeons, pigs, goats, a donkey and a milking cow.The Guineans are nearly always shown clothed, in more elaborate dress that what we see in the documentaries made in the colonies.These individuals were in fact Muslims, as we can see in the scene showing their morning prayers.The camera follows a sequence of activities performed by the Guineans, and these activities are presented as though they were daily scenes in the life of "Blacks of Guinea" (as the intertitle reads).Special emphasis is given to the ceremony in which the chieftains are awarded medals "for distinguished overseas service".On the other hand, Guinean women are introduced with intertitles such as "young girls of characteristic beauty, the envy of many White women", "a princess with dark eyes full of faith" and "Black beauties".The Guinean men are simply referred to as chieftains, princes or players, according to their social standing and the role they performed in their community.
The documentary África em Lisboa… opens with a picture of the map of Guinea, suggesting we have just arrived at a settlement named Aldeia Nova de Sam Corlá.The real setting of the village, however, was Lisbon's Eduardo VII gardens.This film shows young women very smartly turned out, right up to their haircuts.In the scene intertitled "the flower of Guinea, whose faithless eyes deceive", we see girls filmed frontally and in profile.The way the camera observes them seems to intimidate them, and their postures are rather "unnatural".Some women are seen milling and sifting grain or cooking rice, "the staple food" (intertitle); others wash clothes and hang them out to dry, embroider at the sewing machine, weave and stitch fabrics; others still serve dainties on trays while a White man stands behind them, overseeing their actions.
The documentary I Exposição Colonial Portuguesa -Porto 1934(1935), by Aníbal Contreiras, contains no pictures of the exhibition itself but instead offers footage of Porto, other locations in Portugal and the exhibition venue, the Palácio de Cristal, all of which was designed to attract visitors to the event.The Africans participating in this film are the same ones as shown in previous films, such as the already mentioned África em Lisboa... (1932) and in I Companhia de Infantaria Indígena de Angola em Lisboa (1933).Another documentary of the same exhibition is Moçambique, Ritmos Guerreiros em Cantos e Danças23 (1934) by Aníbal Contreiras.This film is rather misleadingly titled, for it is set not in Africa but at the colonial exhibition of Porto.The Africans are shown in sculptures and paintings, in dioramas with life-sized figures, and in their "Indigenous villages".The Natives who participate in the exhibition are also shown performing tasks and receiving small gifts from the visitors.There is a strong religious element.Inside the palace we see the cross and a series of dioramas with missionaries24 .Although its subject is a colonial exhibition, this film spends less time on the individuals from the colonies than on the local population, with the emphasis on Portugal's pavilions and folklore ensembles.
Another documentary of the 1930s is Exposição Histórica da Ocupação (1937), on the exhibition held in Lisbon's Parque Eduardo VII.No individuals from the colonies participated in this event, which primarily focused on the heroes of the wars of occupation.Directed by Lopes Ribeiro with text by the Arquivo Histórico Colonial (AHC) director Manuel Múrias, it is essentially a visual account of the various rooms of the exhibition and their contents: there are portraits (by Eduardo Malta) of the Portuguese heroes of the wars of occupation, sculptures of Henry the Navigator and Vasco da Gama, publications by Serpa Pinto, Capelo and Ivens, and artefacts from the wars.The subject matter also extends to other heroes of other battles as far back as the seventeenth century, and the cross is a ubiquitous presence.The documentary devotes special emphasis to the Portuguese defeat of the Nguni emperor Gungunhana on 28 December 1895.There are references to the soldiers who marched with Mouzinho de Albuquerque to Chaimite, and their heroism is extolled.Gungunhana, the "indigenous" chief, was eventually defeated and humiliated in front of his army, and we see some of his personal effects: rifle, hat, portraits of ten of his lawful wives, and a silver goblet.
Two documentaries were made of the Exhibition of the Portuguese World.Both were eponymously titled.One was by Fernando Carneiro Mendes (1940) and the other was by Lopes Ribeiro (1941).The first film shows the interior of each pavilion and the "Indigenous villages" of the Jardim do Ultramar25 adjacent to the exhibition, in Lisbon.It opens with a colour drawing showing a group of women, whose origin can be derived from their clothing.In the front row there is a woman of the Portuguese region of Minho, an Indian woman, and a Madeira woman.In the back row there is a Macanese, a Timorese and, placed in a position further back, an African woman.This forms a tableau of the diversity of the human "types" of the "empire" represented, but at the same time announces the minor importance of the African woman in the overall picture.In the colonial section of the exhibition, Africans are always shown in proximity to nature -minerals, fauna and flora -and their great size is associated with strength and physical prowess.
One of the most interesting scenes in the second film shows the Pavilion of Colonization, which extols the Portuguese efforts in the propagation of the Christian faith over the course of five centuries, the institution of the overseas captaincies and the foundation of the fortress of Mina.A number of models reconstruct episodes and themes such as the reception of the Portuguese in the court of the king of Congo, the fighting at Chaimite, education, the missions, health care, means of transport by air, land and water, and roads and communication arteries.The camera lingers on giant posters depicting the Natives of Cape Verde, Guinea, São Tomé e Príncipe, Angola, Mozambique, India, Macao and Timor.
The individuals from overseas territories themselves are found in the colonial section of the exhibition.Their lives and habitats are reconstructed using materials actually found in the colonies, and we see them kneading dough, hammering, weaving, playing instruments and dancing.Among the religious elements, the following examples can be highlighted: the banner with the legend "Portugal has always been Christian" ("Pavilion of the Foundation") and the "Chapel of Faith" erected in the colonial centre, where every day the participants of the exhibition, who have "purposely come from the four corners of the empire" (narrator), went to mass.On their exit from mass, the (clothed) Natives file out in an orderly fashion, a visual allusion to the order that existed in an "empire" in which all participated, collaborated and were happy.Religion is also present in the dioramas representing the work of the missions.Generally speaking, the populations represented here belong to two separate worlds: in the main exhibition hall we find the metropolitan Portuguese, while the then Jardim do Ultramar accommodates the peoples from Cape Verde to Timor.One effect of this suggestive spatial layout is the negation of cultural life of all nonmetropolitan peoples, who are all treated as Indígenas.Little time is dedicated to them in this film -which is probably indicative of their scant political and social power.
Native colonial subjects were also in demand in other events organized in metropolitan Portugal 26 .One of these was the tribute to the "Indigenous soldiers" in the film I Companhia de Infantaria Indígena... (1933), which was revealed as a "homage of justice to the Black soldier from the Portuguese colonies" (narrator), which counted on the participation of the minister for the colonies (Armindo Monteiro) and the head of government (Oliveira Salazar).The Africans are present throughout most of the film, and we are told that they belong to the "Back troop incorporated in the military parade commemorating the '28 th of May'".We see a military march past, mostly composed of soldiers of metropolitan Portugal, a musical band with a few African members, a statue alluding to the Great War, and military exercises.
Another event worthy of note was the centenary commemorations documented in Lopes Ribeiro's As Festas do Duplo Centenário (1940).One part of these commemorations, a procession illustrating Portugal and its history, is specifically treated in another documentary, O Cortejo do Mundo Português (1940) by F. Carneiro Mendes.Ribeiro's film (which is incomplete) documents the commemorations of Portugal's "double centenary" -the foundation and the restoration of 1140 and 1640, respectively -held in Lisbon, Guimarães, Porto, Braga, Alentejo and Algarve (Sagres).In the footage documenting the Grande Cortejo do Trabalho procession in Porto we see an allegorical float named "Colonial Agriculture".The African Natives themselves are seen only once in this film, the part showing the procession of the Portuguese World in Lisbon, where they are presented as symbols of the Portuguese conquests.
Later on, on the occasion of the centenary commemorations of 1947, celebrating the eight hundredth anniversary of the capture of Lisbon from the Moors, Leitão de Barros organized a parade in Lisbon's Praça do Império.Two documentaries were made of this parade: O Cortejo Histórico de Lisboa 27 (1947), by Lopes Ribeiro, and O Cortejo Histórico com a Representação de Todas as Colónias Portuguesas em Carros Alegóricos (1947), by Manuel Luís Vieira.The parade featured elements representing all the most important episodes and characters in the history of Portugal, such as Henry the Navigator and Adamastor, both shown flanked by Africans.Each colony is represented by an allegorical float, on top of which (or walking alongside it) we see representatives of its inhabitants.Each float is pulled by a pair of oxen led by an inhabitant of metropolitan Portugal.The Natives are generally represented in this film as a proof of the success of colonization, part of the nation and of the "empire".

Documentaries made in the colonies
Many of the documentaries made in the colonies28 emphasize the potential of the African territories in human and natural terms.Some focus on the creation of structures designed to facilitate the education and evangelization of the Africans; others seek to portray their "usages and customs".This is the case of Costumes Primitivos dos Indígenas em Moçambique (1929), made by the Brigada Cinematográfica Portuguesa and produced Images of Africa?Portuguese films and documentaries related to the former colonies in Africa (first half of the 20th century) .Patrícia Ferraz de Matos by the AGC.Filmed in Angónia, Inhambane and Tete (Mozambique), this documentary shows some Mozambicans performing some tasks, such as: pounding grain and making fire by rubbing two sticks, illustrating the scarcity of resources, preparing food in pots made from gourds; working on plantations, doing pottery and basketwork, weaving and making clothes, making jewellery, working cotton and looking for gold.We also see Indigenous Mozambican dances and "war dances" by the women of Angónia and Inhambane.In a film totally dedicated to Africans, there is even time to illustrate the polygamy of some Africans: we see a chieftain with his various wives.
Another documentary Acção Colonizadora dos Portugueses (1932), by Antunes da Mata, is filmed in Angola.This film opens with the intertitle "Villagers of Portugal have been settling in Angola with the assistance of the State.They have been provided with irrigated land, seed, houses and money".As if this wasn't enticement enough, we are also shown another resource on which the White settler can count -the work of Africans.One of the following scenes shows them working on the construction of a dam or bridge over a river.Yet it also stresses the idea that colonization also helped the Africans, encouraging them, for example, to produce their own foods.Everything is going well and an intertitle even informs us that "the soba (tribal chief) manifests its contentment to the Maniputo (the Portuguese overseer)".Investment is also being made in health care -for the Natives as well as the settlers.The film shows "the central hospital of Luanda, built last century" and still "one of the best in Africa".The "hospital for Indígenas", meanwhile, is described as "one of the best on the West Coast".Named the "Charity Hospital", it is smaller than Luanda's central hospital, although Natives far outnumbered settlers.Despite the inequalities, the world we are presented is one in which everything seems to be running smoothly and everyone is in their place.
The documentary Angola Uma Nova Lusitânia (1944) by Lopes Ribeiro emphasizes the economic and sociocultural potential of the colonies.Based on the material filmed by the MCCA, it was given a preview screening at the Instituto Superior Técnico's Exhibition of Colonial Construction.The film extols the colonizing and evangelizing mission of Portugal and seeks to convey the idea that the Natives owed their peaceful existence in the 1940s to the Portuguese.In illustration of this we see the king of Congo receiving Carmona in the company of his queen and some Native soldiers.The film's narrator informs us that every one of the Indígenas, who "even ride bicycles around São Salvador", is "living testimony to our civilizing action".The narrator continues: "This is how we proceed on all the continents, fusing Europe with Asia, Africa and America, mixing the products of their soils and the souls of their peoples, turning everything equally Portuguese".In a church we see an African organist accompanying a Native choir.As the narrator informs us, "all know how to read", "they're singing in Latin" and "only the patience and selfless effort of the missionaries could achieve such a miracle".
In Lopes Ribeiro's documentary Gentes que Nós Civilizámos (apontamentos etnográficos de Angola) (1944), made during the existence of the MCCA and property of the AGC, focuses on different aspects of the "mission" of the Portuguese, mainly among the Angolans.Here it is sought to reveal a treasure -a human one, but also that little else seemed to be known about it.The camera gives much attention to the Native females, who are filmed frontally and in profile, according to a form of representation that at the time is found in photography, inspired by the suggestions of "physical anthropology" (Matos, 2014b).These women are described with expressions such as: "colour doesn't matter, a woman's not a woman if she doesn't like to make herself pretty".The Africans are also differentiated by their groupings and practices, which in this film are classified according to Western models and observed with preconceptions.In the province of Malange, the women dance to the rhythm of the batuques.According to the narrator, these dances are "a little like the traditional circle dances of the village feasts of Portugal".This was a comparison based on a phenomenon familiar to the scriptwriter, but with no attempt to contextualize one or the other.Lopes Ribeiro's As Ilhas Crioulas de Cabo Verde (1945) was another MCCA production.The background music is not the national anthem, or music usually classified as "classical", but the morna typical of Cape Verde.Cape Verdean music is acknowledged as different from the batuque characteristic of other African peoples, and is described as "languidly expressive".Portuguese evangelization seems to have been successful, for the narrator speaks of the "profound faith of the good Creole people".And investment was being made not only in evangelization, but education as well.According to the narrator, "almost 400 students strive to improve their knowledge in the colonial school", most of them Whites or Mestiços.Some -not many -went "reluctantly" to the escolas superiores of metropolitan Portugal.
Ricardo Malheiro's documentary O Ensino em Angola29 (1950) portrays education in the secondary schools, technical colleges, and religious and private institutions of the colony.It was filmed in Luanda (Liceu Salvador Correia de Sá, Escola Industrial); Huíla; Moçâmedes; Tchivinguiro (Escola Agropecuária); Benguela (Colónia de Férias); Bié (Instituto Liceal e Técnico); Nova Lisboa; Sá da Bandeira (Liceu, Escola Industrial) and Escola do Magistério Rudimental.This documentary shows the Indígenas receiving a "special education ... entrusted to the Catholic missions" (narrator).We see a priest, Fr Freire, teaching the Bible in a mission in Huíla, while another priest, Fr Carlos Estermann (an ethnographer as well as missionary) does the same.The Natives (children, youths and adults) also appear in the "Teófilo Duarte primary schoolteacher training college", while in the industrial schools of Huíla and Luanda the Natives could learn carpentry, metalwork and other crafts.
Finally, the documentary Acção Missionária em Angola 30 (1951), by Lemos Pereira and João Silva, now property of the Agência Geral do Ultramar (AGU), extols the spirit of sacrifice of the missionaries who are described as "heroes and saints".These missionaries, we are told, made huts in the undergrowth which "the Indígenas immediately tried to destroy by setting fire to them".Yet the missionaries raise these same Indígenas from a "primitive life to make useful men of them", to "mould good workers, healthy men" who Images of Africa?Portuguese films and documentaries related to the former colonies in Africa (first half of the 20th century) .Patrícia Ferraz de Matos attended classes, where they chose "vocations preparing them to face life" (narrator).Although the missions did teach basic reading and writing skills, the "great opportunity" given to the "young Indígena" who worked hard was to enter a seminary.

Staging of the wars of occupation
At a time when the regime was already in a position of acute discomfort from an international point of view there appeared a film which evoked the memory of the "empire" and the exploits of the Portuguese occupation in Africa, the film Chaimite (1953), by Jorge Brum do Canto31 .This was an epic action film, reminiscent of an American Western, whose rousing soundtrack, scored by Joly Braga dos Santos, won the SNI's Grand Prize for best feature-length film.The action depicts the Nguni "hordes" attacking Lourenço Marques in October 1894; the African campaigns under António Enes and associates; the attempts by Caldas Xavier, Aires Ornelas, Eduardo Costa, Paiva Couceiro, Freire Andrade and, a little later, Galhardo and Mouzinho to liberate Mozambique; and various episodes of the war.The Portuguese troops were alarmed when they learned that the rebellious Natives were 6,500 in number compared to a little over 200 Portuguese.Throughout the film, we occasionally see Natives on the side of the settlers, while others are on the side of the rebels.They are informers or spies, or perform menial tasks for the settlers.With the exception of the leaders, they have no social status.The film shows the religious and Catholic character intended to be associated with the Portuguese nation.One of the most cherished events among the Catholic -Christmas -had gone uncelebrated due to an attack on Christmas Eve in 1894.
The Natives were not Catholic and therefore had no respect for "religion"; with no God, they wandered lost and aimless through the world.This evaluation seems strange at a time when post-war decolonization was now underway among other colonial powers -although it had yet to occur in Portugal, it was nevertheless indicative of a reformulation of ideas in relation to overseas possessions.The Natives are never given individual identities; with the exception of Mambaza and Mauáua and their leaders, such as Gungunhana, they are simply designated as "Blacks" or "Indígenas".
After Gungunhana is found, Mouzinho gives the order to arrest the "fugitive" and bind his hands (Figure 3).This episode is representative, essentially, of the humiliation suffered by many Africans.Another interesting feature of this film is the use of some Native languages.The character named António, for example, always speaks Landin to the Natives.At least up until the battle of Marracuene, after which the Portuguese are in direct confrontation with the Nguni and Nguni becomes the language spoken between the warring factions (Seabra, 2000, p. 244).The idea this film seeks to convey to its Portuguese spectators is that after pacification Africa was a prosperous and fertile country, and that to live and work there was to enjoy happiness and wealth.

Conclusion
The purpose of these films was to disseminate propaganda (for the regime and the colonies) rather than convey information.Neither did they have much to do with "geographic tourism", to echo the expression of Luís de Pina (1977), or with ethnography.Their objective was to cultivate a colonial consciousness and, similarly to others of their time, their tone was apologetic.The "seventh art" was used, therefore, as a "weapon" in defence of the regime and its colonial policy.In its representations of Africa the regime sought to project a national consciousness of a single, undivided Portugal.In the films with sound, orchestral arrangements, musical accompaniment (epic music which legitimizes and stages the power of certain characters) and the "folklore" and "rituals" of the Natives reinforce this message.Some documentaries evidence the capacity for work of the African Native, and the importance of the role of the Native in the construction of Africa's promising future.Yet this work is always overseen by a White, metropolitan Portuguese -African labour at the service of "White" know-how.As for the images depicting the development and modernization of the colonies in the form of cities such as Luanda, Lobito, Lourenço Marques and Beira, effectively overshadow the populations under the Portuguese colonial administration and their way of life, very different from what the film shows us.In the documentaries filmed at the exhibitions, the camera is invariably drawn to the exotic, the different, the picturesque.All this effort is at the service of documenting "Overseas Portugal" and its peoples with their "uses and customs", the "civilizing" work which was being carried out there, or the role of the missions.
Most of the Africans who came to the exhibitions were chieftains, princes or princesses in their communities of origin, or youths carefully selected.Many wear clothing and shoes -their companions in the group wore matching outfits -and rarely appear naked, as they do in the documentaries filmed in the colonies.In both cases, however, their identities are represented by the role or status they enjoy within their communities, not by their names.The Africans are housed in makeshift villages built with the help of the Natives themselves, while at the same time they are subjected to a process of imposition and removal of identity.The way the Natives look at the camera, turn their backs or smile, looks rehearsed, although on many occasions they seem distinctly ill at ease.And we can also detect a certain voyeuristic pleasure on the part of the cameraman -a pleasure which at bottom is expressive of the power relations at stake.Similarly to other situations I analysed in other works, Africans are represented as instances of a single indivisible whole (all are indiscriminately called Indígenas), but among this undifferentiated whole some attempts were made to identify distinct characteristics (Matos, 2013).This happens, for instance, in Feitiço do Império (1940), where some Natives are depicted with a status supposedly distant from the Portuguese "civilization", white others are represented as being nearer from the assimilated ones or as having already earned that status.
When seeking to answer the question raised in the title of this article ("Images of Africa?"),I can say that the images I viewed were not strictly related to Africa; these were images of the "Africa" created in a staging attempt, in order to show the inhabitants of metropolitan Portugal and the visitors of some of the great exhibitions in which Portugal participated, images of that "Africa" which were staged in metropolitan territory and images of this metropolitan area itself.On the other hand, I found very close relationships between films and documentaries (the one directing documentaries is directing a fiction film and parts of documentaries are used in other films).According to Paulo Monteiro (2003) in the context of an analysis of the relationship between fiction and reality in the case of cinema, the "reality" used in fiction can at the same time always remain fiction and there may be different senses of "reality", although every film has some fiction element.Within my analysis, we can approach the images created "here" on "over there", because it was all staged, and we can talk about the images created "over there" to be seen "here", considering that the camera focused fundamentally on positive aspects, considered worthy of note, or which specimen at the time was not considered problematic.
From the mid-50s, the rationale for a Luso-tropical society and the idea that Brazil was a living and positive example of that "Portuguese way of being in the world"32 , were perhaps in the origin of a greater film production on Brazil.Some examples are A Gloriosa Viagem ao Brasil (1957), A Viagem Presidencial ao Brasil (1957) and Comunidade Luso- Brasileira (1958), all by Lopes Ribeiro.In the late 50s it is sought to project a multi-racial Portugal, a change which is evident in Nossos Irmãos, os Africanos (1963) andCatembe (1965).This latter film sought to document the daily life of Lourenço Marques and was subjected to the largest number of cuts ordered by the censorship in the history of Portuguese cinema, its viewing having been banned during the period of the Estado Novo.Films on the "overseas possessions" continued to appear through the 60s and up to 1974.By now, however, and despite censorship, these films began to incorporate a degree of social