These introductions were originally read as part of the roundtable ‘The Legacies of Sarah Maldoror 1928–2020′ (12 May 2020), which can still be watched here. We republish these beautiful tributes one year after her death on 14 April 2020.
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In my early teens, Sarah’s eccentricity bothered me: the fact that she wore jeans and boots and her hair in a big afro, and that, until the mid-1970s, she answered the phone with, “Ready for the Revolution?” I asked her many times why she couldn’t be more normal, work at the neighbourhood bakery or something like that, waiting for us after school with a glass of milk and some cake.
One day she helped me write a short essay to read out in front of my class at school. It got me an A. It became clear that not only was she a true poet but also that her eccentric nature was envied by all my friends. Sarah was modern, ahead of her time, and she always treated my sister and me as individuals. This was heavy to deal with as a child. Now, as an adult, I appreciate her even more. One day she was supposed to go to Nigeria for three days but only returned three months later. How could she have imagined that she was about to land right in the middle of a coup? Things were never easy with her, but they were always fun and unpredictable – un vrai bordel. People came in and out of the house all the time and good-hearted strangers babysat us while Sarah travelled the world. Later on I was astonished to learn that so many major figures of the 1960s had stayed with us and sat at our kitchen table. There were very few rules I can remember her setting but one of them was that guns should be left by the door.
Thank you Sarah for being so courageous and for passing this courage on to me. You gave me the strength to face up to my fears and to venture out and have an impact in this world.
Henda Ducados
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A poetical state of mind
Sarah Maldoror is well-known as a filmmaker and a militant but this is a reduced view of who she actually was. Before being a filmmaker, woman and mother, Sarah was a fundamentally poetic person. She did not compartementalise her life into different sections. Everything she decided on, acted upon, was linked to multiple dimensions. She was original, generous and always surprising. In one of our last conversations at the hospital, she spoke only of her admiration for the nurses and wondered whether we – her daughters – needed anything.
Sarah chose cinema as a way to spread African culture to African people and to others. She always said: “We are responsible, no one else is to blame. We are the only ones who should communicate our history”. Her very first feature film – Gun for Banta – was produced and financed in Algeria. After a difficult shoot in the war zone in Guinea-Bissau, and after a conflict with the producers, she had to abandon the copy of the film and leave Algeria within 48 hours. Our whole family was kicked out of the country. Our father, Mário Pinto de Andrade, had a meeting with Fidel Castro and as a result Henda and I were sent to live with a host family in the south of France. We all met later in Paris.
Throughout her life, Sarah directed 40 films and worked on more than 15 projects that were never completed. My sister and I are currently working on completing our existing archives, getting back rights and copies of several works and restoring a few others. There are also many films that were never broadcasted, and even one that was seized. During an interview with the RFI radio station in November 2019 she said: “I was kicked out from Algiers, but I wasn’t the only one. So what?” This was my mother. This was her way of thinking, her attitude, whatever the situation. No time for regrets. It was sometimes difficult for Henda and me to keep up with her. She brought us with her everywhere, political or professional meetings, film festivals. Sometimes, for example, we would spend hours with Louis Aragon reading Victor Hugo. For her everything was something new for us to experience: a way of bringing art into our daily lives. We made floral bouquets by mixing fruit and vegetables (radish and lily of the valley). Once she asked the mayor of the city of St Denis to destroy the wall of the cemetery and replace it with hedges of roses.
This poetry vibrates in her first film Monangambée. The incarnation of torture through the body of Mateus as he falls down. No drop of blood: the interiorisation of suffering. She always looked for a different way of telling stories, a way to transcend everyday life.
Once, when filming the poet and former president of Senegal Léopold Sédar Senghor in Normandy, she had Senghor change the decor and move decorative masks into the corridor, because it was nicer on the level of the image – the right angle for the camera. Head of State or not, the quality of the image was important to Sarah.
Sarah’s concept of freedom was scary for some. There were producers who never signed a contract with her or, if they did it once, never did again. When she returned from Guyana with her eponymous film on the poet Léon Damas, the RFO Channel refused to broadcast it because of her last minute decision to shoot it in black and white. But this is of course one of her best films. She wanted to share and show her pride in Black culture, and despite thousands of negative responses she never gave up. Nor did she ever change her attitude. I told her several times that the one word she didn’t understand was “compromise”.
To conclude I will share the title of her last project based on Franz Fanon: “Fanon, a whisper in the wind” What I would like to insist on is the complexity of her thought and action: She always remained true to herself. She was open-minded, aware of others, absolutely curious about everything. But for sure sensitive to others and the surrounding and always ready for the unpredictable.
Thank you,
Annouchka de Andrade