On April 13, Sarah Maldoror passed away from the Covid-19 virus. Born in Candou, France, in 1939, Maldoror was a Guadeloupean of African descent and well known for being one of the pioneering filmmakers from the African diaspora. She is considered the matriarch of African cinema since she was the first woman of color to make a feature film. Maldoror’s films are known to be instruments of liberation and political activism, but they also reflect a feminist manifesto. This is particularly visible in her acclaimed feature, Sambizanga - 1972 - that looks at Angola’s struggle for independence from the Portuguese colonialists through a woman’s perspective. Maldoror’s endorsement of the female gaze is one that has inspired many women to reclaim African history through cinema.

Maldoror believed that African women have an essential role to play in cinema by offering new aesthetic and poetic forms while writing about African history. She is famously quoted saying,“African women must be everywhere. They must be in the images, behind the camera, in the editing room and involved in every stage of the making of a film. They must be the ones to talk about their problems.” This belief is reflected in her film Sambizanga. The film follows Maria through a journey to the city of Luanda to find her husband, Domingos, who has been imprisoned by the Portuguese colonialists as a political criminal. Domingos is a construction worker and an active member of the resistance movement that has widespread influence in Angola. However, Maria is not aware of his political involvement, making her search for him longer and more painful. In the film, her journey reflects the real-life experience of many Angolans in their fight for independence.

Maldoror also works in elements of social realism that demonstrate the hardships Angolans endured. For instance, Maria is forced to walk for miles to get to the city of Luanda, with her son on her back. She visits different police stations seeking for Domingos but is often told to leave or wait for the secretariats. In one of the stations, the Portuguese administrators push her out before she says a word. Her struggle against authority represents the struggle of the Angolans against the Portuguese in getting justice. It can also be seen as a microcosm of what many Africans experience when trying to gain access to their histories and in their fight for their liberation. Through her challenges, however, Maria is also helped by friends and relatives from her village and city, reflecting the solidarity of the Angolans throughout their many hardships.

Maldoror also reflects the cultural, social and political movement of Négritude in her works. Her depiction of the solidarity of Angolans in Sambizanga largely reflects this commitment. Most of the narrative parallels Maria’s journey with that of the leaders of the resistance movement, who are also in a search of Domingo. Their conversations can be seen as allegories for Marxist socialism and for Franz Fanon’s views on racism. For instance, the leader of the movement, Mussunda, mentions in one scene that there are no whites, blacks or those of mixed-race, only the rich and the poor and the rich are the poor man’s enemy.

As a matriarch of cinema, Maldoror paved the way for various other artists and was well known among other influential poets and filmmakers like Ousmane Sémbene, whom she met while studying film at The Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography in Moscow.. Before diving into film, Maldoror was involved in theatre, where she co-founded the theatre group, Compagnie d’Art Dramatique des Griots, in Paris in 1956. This was one of the first theater groups specifically for African and African-Caribbean actors, which Maldoror hoped would "bring attention to black artists and writers.". She also worked as an assistant director and director in Paris, Martinique and Portuguese-speaking countries. In 1963, while residing in Morocco, Maldoror met Gillo Pontecorvo and assisted in the making of the 1966 classic film, The Battle of Algiers. Maldoror’s commitment to the celebration of black identity and culture is reflected in every aspect of her career and identity. Her career is marked by over 30 films of various forms and her name, which she changed from Sarah Ducados to Sarah Maldoror as homage to The Songs of Maldoror, the work of the surrealist poet Lautréamont.

Maldoror established new aesthetic standards through her use of cinematic images and invoking of political movements. She described her work as "cinéma utilitaire" — a cinema that can prove useful in the ultimate defeat of oppressive images, actions and structures”. Her films have won various prestigious awards including Sambizanga, which shared the prestigious Tanit d’Or prize at the Carthage Film Festival in 1972.

Maldoror’s commitment to black culture and history through cinema is truly admirable and her legacy lives on through the numerous artists she inspired through her work. Bearing in mind the effects of the ongoing pandemic, which took Maldoror from us, it is also important to understand and remember her contributions to African cinema and African history.