Film screening African Lisbon: talking about Li ké terra and Horse Money in classrooms

Abstract

Today, through cinema, television, videogames, other audiovisuals and especially advertising, images have a role shaping beliefs, concepts and dreams. Most images have an inner action beyond our control, spreading social stereotypes that embody our visions of the world. Recent Portuguese film production highlight controversial visions of the complex post-colonial reality in contemporary society due to the clashes of memories about the colonial past that these films instigate. The documentary Li ké terra (2010) and the feature film Horse Money (2014) constitute places of memory and historical reconstruction: both films tell stories about Cape Verdean communities in Portugal, revealing present realities strongly influenced by a colonial History. Through focus group discussions about these films we examine how young students (re)construct their perceptions about the daily lives of African “immigrants” in Portugal and their representations of “race”. These focus group discussions enabled us to scrutinize the way collective memories are (re)created in post-colonial contexts, and whether and how these memories enable the critical reflection about past conflicts and current intergroup relations. This qualitative analysis was carried out using the inductive-comparative method and the critical discourse analysis.