Sambizanga

This film from Angola takes its title from the black working-class suburb of Luanda and is based on events that occurred in 1961, 14 years prior to Angola's independence. Set before the uprising against the Portuguese colonialists, the story centers on a young woman's search for her jailed husband. The life of the black couple is disrupted when the husband Domingos, a truck driver, is suddenly arrested for political subversion. Ignorant of her spouse's activism, his wife Maria treks from village to village, with their baby on her back, between fields of tall grass and high hills, hoping to locate him. Buffeted from one police station to another, Maria perseveres while her husband is beaten and tortured by inquisitors intent on learning the names of others in the independence movement. The murderousness of the prison officials contrasts with the calm continuity of the resistance which includes both blacks and whites. Despite daily suffering, life is sustained by the solace of friendship, dancing and feasting. The activist narrative concludes with black militants discussing a forthcoming assault on Luanda prison, the reviled symbol of Portuguese oppression. (Circulates).