Abstract

Pedro Costa’s Casa De Lava (1994) draws on the cannibalistic potential of cinema in order to excavate the history of colonialism in Cape Verde. Cannibalism operates in a two-fold manner in Casa. Firstly, it refers to Costa’s practice of employing cinematic references in order to draw out otherwise concealed elements of earlier films. Secondly, it denotes an aesthetic practice in which the film is cannibalised by the people and geography of Cape Verde. By operating in a zone between documentary and fiction, Casa undermines the commodifying and exoticising tendencies of cinema. Instead, by drawing on the stories of the people of Cape Verde, the film illustrates the way in which the legacy of colonialism continues to haunt the island. Cannibal cinema in Casa is a method for making these otherwise concealed histories speak, and in doing so, create new forms of cinematic invention.

Highlights

  • Pedro Costa’s Casa De Lava (1994) draws on the cannibalistic potential of cinema in order to excavate the history of colonialism in Cape Verde

  • This paper seeks to develop a new theorisation of cannibalism as an aesthetic strategy by focusing on how it can operate within cinema

  • Cannibalism is understood as the basis for a formal approach to creating films, in which the film’s attention to the specificity of people and geography allows cinema to tap into the otherwise concealed histories of Portuguese colonialism

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Summary

Introduction

Pedro Costa’s Casa De Lava (1994) draws on the cannibalistic potential of cinema in order to excavate the history of colonialism in Cape Verde. The notion of the ‘Letters’, which recurs as a motif throughout these films emerged after the shooting of Casa in Cape Verde when Costa was given a large number of letters by islanders to bring back to relatives who had emigrated to Portugal to find work. While Costa is not concerned with cannibalism in a literal sense, like these filmmakers his work involves a close attention to the linguistic, cultural and historical context of the island of Cape Verde, a place that, like Brazil, was a former Portuguese colony.

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