PHILADELPHIA — Cape Verdean filmmaker Elson Santos organized a showing of the new documentary he directed, along with Lara Sousa from Mozambique, to 80 people at the BlackStar Film Festival here July 6-9. The film, “We, People of the Islands,” in Cape Verdean Creole with English subtitles, is based on interviews with workers and others who fought, arms-in-hand, in both Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau during their independence struggle against Portuguese colonial rule in the 1960s and ’70s.
It includes coverage of 30 combatants from the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC) who went to Cuba for military training in their fight for independence from Portugal. The PAIGC was the popular movement forged by Amílcar Cabral that led the independence struggle to victory in Capo Verde and Guinea-Bissau in 1974-75.
The film includes interviews and documentary footage of the fighting, combatants’ memories of Cabral and how Cuba aided their struggle. It has scenes of Cabral speaking with workers, young people and fellow armed militias on the Cape Verdean islands and in Guinea-Bissau. It describes the impact of Cabral’s assassination in 1973. Another scene shows Cuban leader Fidel Castro giving a powerful speech on world revolutionary developments at the Tricontinental Conference in Havana in January 1966, where Cabral also spoke.
In the discussion following the screening, Santos said that Cuba played a crucial role in the independence struggle and that solidarity continues today, with Cuban doctors and other medical volunteers providing free care on the islands. Cape Verdean students were also enrolled in ELAM, the Latin American School of Medicine in Cuba. It covers all expenses for students from around the world who will return to their countries to provide medical care.
In talking with Osborne Hart, Socialist Workers Party candidate for Pennsylvania lieutenant governor, and some of his supporters before the film showing, Santos described his own upbringing on Cape Verde and said he wanted to make the film so he could learn more about the independence struggle and share it with others.
His own family had been divided — his father fought with the Portuguese military and his uncle was in the PAIGC. He also discussed how the independence struggle in Africa became intertwined with the Portuguese workers’ struggle against their fascist dictatorship.
People who attended the film showing bought 14 copies of the new Pathfinder book, Cuba and the Independence War in Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde: The Fall of the Last Colonial Empire in Africa by Cuban revolutionary leader Víctor Dreke. Santos said he was familiar with Dreke, who led the volunteer Cuban combatants aiding the PAIGC in their struggle against Portuguese colonial rule. He was very pleased to see the book and said he is a “great admirer” of Dreke.