BOOK LAUNCH: Cinemas of the Mozambican Revolution

Dr Ros Gray

POSTPONED DUE TO UCU STRIKE - NEW DATE TO BE ANNOUNCED SOON

The SOAS Centre for Creative Industries, Media and Screen Studies (CCIMSS) and the Screen Worlds project are delighted to welcome Dr Ros Gray (Goldsmiths) to launch her new book, Cinemas of the Mozambican Revolution (Boydell & Brewer, 2020).

When: Wednesday 26 February, 5-7pm
Where: Room SG36, SOAS University of London (Senate House)
Free and open to everyone - no prior registration required

About the presentation:
In one of the first cultural acts to follow independence in 1975, Frelimo's new socialist government of Mozambique set up a National Institute of Cinema (the INC). In a country where many people had no previous experience of cinema, the INC was tasked to "deliver to the people an image of the people". My presentation will examine how the INC began the task of decolonising the film industry, building on networks of solidarity with other socialist and non-aligned struggles. Mozambique became an epicentre for militant filmmakers from around the world and played an essential role in building the new nation. I will focus on the aesthetic strategies and production histories of a number of key films to explore how filmmaking became a resource for resistance against Apartheid as the Cold War played out across Southern Africa during the late 1970s and 1980s.

About the author:
Dr Ros Gray is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Art, Goldsmiths University of London. Her research and writing in numerous journals and books has explored militant filmmaking and 'socialist friendship' in the context of liberation struggles and revolutionary movements in Mozambique, Angola, Portugal, Guinea-Bissau and Burkina Faso. She is on the Editorial Board of the journal Third Text. Her monograph Cinemas of the Mozambican Revolution: Anti-Colonialism, Independence and Internationalism, 1968-1991 is published in the African Articulations series by Boydell & Brewer in January 2020.