Archival images and audiovisual testimony : negotiating the end of empire in the documentary films Guerra Colonial. Histórias de Campanha em Moçambique (1998) and Natal 71 (1999)

Archival images and audiovisual testimony-Negotiating the end of empire in the documentary films Guerra Colonial. Hist6rias de Cam pan ha em Mo~ambique {1998) and Natal71 {1999) 1 ABSTRAa KEYWORDS This article analyses Portuguese documentary films from the 1990s, when public archive discussions about the war of decolonization gained a new dynamic. The video series documentary film Guerra Colonial. Hist6rias de Campanha (Quirilw SimOes, 1998) relates tlte war memory in Angola, Guinea and Mozambique mainly IJy dmwing 011 archival material and Mozambique voice-over na"ation. Margarida Cardoso's Natal 71 (1999) concentmtes on specific Portugal episodes and individual experiences of the war in Mozambique. This article explores 1. This artlcl e Is based on a paper presented at the VIII Congreso 1 bMco de Estud Ios Afrlcanos on 14-16 June 201 2 In Mad rid. hcrw the aforementioned films use certain strategies to include footage, other visual representations and audiovisual testimonies in order to create a specific image of the past. The leading question is not hcrw much truth these films contain, but rather which techniques they implement in order to produce truth, authenticity and evidence about the war and the people involved. I will argue that documentary productions constitute a form of memory politics in which discussion and negotiation of the coloni.al past are brought forward from particular social frameworks situated in the present.