Ghosts of an Empire — Ariel de Bigault

Imperial and colonial history has been told and reinvented by Portuguese cinema. Ghosts of an Empire have been running through this cinematographic imagery since the beginning of the 20th century… 100 years of films. The documentaries and fictions of the colonial past are contrasted with contemporary films and perspectives. Seven Portuguese filmmakers – Fernando Matos Silva, João Botelho, Margarida Cardoso, Hugo Vieira da Silva, Ivo M. Ferreira, Manuel Faria de Almeida, Joaquim Lopes Barbosa – as well as José Manuel Costa, director of the Cinemateca, and Maria do Carmo Piçarra, researcher, open the vaults of memory, dialoguing with the actors Ângelo Torres and Orlando Sérgio. They uncover the myths of the discoveries, an imperial fiction, a factory of the colonial epic, as masks of domination… ghosts that persist even today. The film develops a path of emotions in memories and very current experiences.

Author and director Ariel de Bigault works between France, Portugal, Brazil and Africa. Her work has been connected to the routes of the Lusophone World. After beginning her cinematographic journey with some documentaries in Portugal, she directed the series Éclats Noirs du Samba, that brings together huge Afro-Brazilian artists, including Gilberto Gil, Martinho da Vila and Grande Othelo and Margem Atlântica (2006), which portrays African immigrants, people from different ages, who are building a place and an identity in Lisbon. In 2020, she finished Fantasmas do Império. At the same time, she carried out research and dissemination work on contemporary African music, especially Lusophone.

Photography: Renato Cruz Santos