Dundo, Memória Colonial: A postcolonial return and the documentary politics of history

Abstract

This article presents an analysis of the documentary film Dundo, Memória Colonial (‘Dundo, colonial memory’) (2009) by the Portuguese journalist Diana Andringa. In the first section, I will inscribe Andringa’s film within the wider context of filmic geographies of return. Sections two and three address the multifaceted ways in which colonial Dundo is remembered in Portugal by former settlers and in Angola by former African workers as presented by the film. The fourth section of the article analyses a more personal memory of Dundo that is also developed in this film as the director herself spent her childhood in Dundo. I will conclude that Dundo offers fragmented visions of the past that have to be confronted and discussed in a shared Afro-Portuguese filmic framework. As nostalgic and critical ways of remembering the past are confronted in the film, the documentary proposes that remembering the past is always ambivalent and connected to specific politics of history.