Sarah Maldoror (19 July 1929 − 13 April 2020) was a French filmmaker of French West Indies descent.

Early life and education

Born Sarah Durados in 1929 in Condom, Gers, the daughter of emigrants from Guadeloupe, she chose her artist's name in remembrance of Les Chants de Maldoror by Lautréamont.

She attended a drama school in Paris. Together with her husband, Angolan nationalist Mário Pinto de Andrade, she received a scholarship and studied film with Mark Donskoi in Moscow in 1961–62 where she met Ousmane Sembène. She is best known for her feature film Sambizanga (1972) on the 1961–1974 war in Angola.

Career

After her studies, Sarah Maldoror, worked as an assistant on Gillo Pontecorvo's acclaimed film, The Battle of Algiers (1966). She also worked as an assistant to Algerian director Ahmed Lallem.

Maldoror's short film, Monangambee (1968), was set in Angola, based on a story by Angolan writer José Luandino Vieira. This 17-minute-long film's title, Monangambée, refers to the call used by Angolan anti-colonial activists to signal a village meeting. The film was shot with amateur actors in Algeria. It tells the story of a poor woman who visits her husband, who is imprisoned in the city of Luanda. The film was selected for the Director's Fortnight at Cannes in 1971, representing Angola.

Her first feature film, Sambizanga, was also based on a story by Vieira.

Maldoror is one of the first women to direct a feature film in Africa; therefore, her work is often included in studies of the role of African women in African cinema.

Maldoror died on April 13, 2020, at the age of 90, from COVID-19 during the 2020 coronavirus pandemic in France.

Awards

• Maldoror won a Tanit d'or at the 1972 Carthage Film Festival
• Maldoror received the National Order of Merit (France) from the Government of France

Filmography

• Monangambé, 1968
• Des fusils pour Banta (Guns for Banta), 1970
• Carnaval en Guinée-Bissau (Carnival in Guinea-Bissau), 1971
• Sambizanga, 1972
• Un carneval dans le Sahel (Carnival in Sahel), 1977
• Folgo, Ile de Feu
• Et les chiens se taisaient (And the dogs kept silent)
• Un homme, une terre (A man, a country)
• La Basilique de Saint-Denis
• Un dessert pour Constance, 1983
• Le cimetière du Père Lachaise
• Miro
• Lauren
• Robert Lapoujade, peintre
• Toto Bissainthe, Chanteuse
• René Depestre, poète
• L'hôpital de Leningrad, 1983
• La littérature tunisienne de la Bibliothèque nationale
• Un sénégalias en Normandie
• Robert Doisneau, photographe
• Le racisme au quotidien (Daily life racism), 1983
• Le passager du Tassili (The Tassili passenger), 1987
• Aimé Césaire, le masque des mots (Aimé Césaire, word as masks), 1986
• Emmanuel Ungaro, couturier
• Louis Aragon – Un masque à Paris
• Vlady, peintre
• Léon G. Damas, 1995
• L'enfant-cinéma, 1997
• La tribu du bois de l'é (In the time of people)

Documentary about Sarah Maldoror

• Sarah Maldoror ou la nostalgie de l’utopie by Anne Laure Folly, France /Togo, 1998.