04/07/2024 - In her new feature, the Portuguese director focuses on a little-discussed historical happening: the death of expatriated African workers owing to their longing for their homeland

(© Film Servis Festival Karlovy Vary)

How does the legacy of Portuguese colonialism linger in current society? This is one of the themes central to the work of Portuguese helmer Margarida Cardoso. In her newest feature, Banzo [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Margarida Cardoso
film profile], screening in the Crystal Globe Competition at the Karlovy Vary IFF, she focuses on a little-discussed historical happening: the death of expatriated African workers owing to an illness caused by their longing for their homeland.

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Cineuropa: The discussion around colonialism has gained momentum over the last few years. You first approached this topic in 2004 with your movie The Murmuring Coast. What first intrigued you about it?
Margarida Cardoso: It has been a theme in all of my films. Sometimes, I think I'm going to change that, but in the end, I'm always focused on it. I have a relationship with Africa, as my father was a pilot in the military, and when I was two years old, we moved to Mozambique. I was there during the whole colonial war, from 1965-1975. I can say that the experience traumatised me, although probably not as much as it did other people. But it was a strange situation because the Portuguese government was not willing to admit that there was a war going on. So this silent violence marked me a great deal.

Slavery was abolished in Portugal in 1761 and in the colonies in 1869. But as your movie shows, there was not an immediate break with the principle of it. The people aren’t free and are taken advantage of. Do you see parallels to the world today?
There is a lot of ambivalence. The central character, Afonso Paiva, is a white man. He is perched on the side of the colonisers, of power. I also wanted to give the film kind of a contemporary look. These things are so difficult to define because slavery didn't just disappear. That fact is something we should explore and not forget.

The sentiment of “banzo” can be found in different languages. However, the word “banzo” itself was originally used in the colony of Brazil. Was it used in Africa as well, or is that creative licence?
I think the concept comes from Kimbundu, a language from the north of Angola and the Congo. It means home, or house, and relates to missing home. So, it's very similar to modern homesickness. The word came up at the beginning of the 19th century. At the beginning of the 20th century, when the film takes place, the word had been forgotten because it's something very much related to the Atlantic slave trade. During my research in the medical archives, I found several cases of people who died in hospitals owing to nostalgia, a term they used for depression.

The movie showcases a lot of tools used to uphold hegemonic violence. Did you feel worried about reproducing the violence by showing this, and how did you navigate it?
That was the main challenge. Where are the boundaries? You have to strike a balance because it is one of the challenges of the film – that it takes place from the point of view of those in power. Some things are very violent, such as how the people treat each other and how they treat the black characters. I'm conscious that the film could raise these questions. But it was very important for me not to be afraid, and to be fair.

Do you hope that one day, a person of colour will make a movie about this topic from their point of view?
I think so – I hope so. There are a lot of stories to be told, and there is a lot of room for other points of view.