Cacheu

Cacheu is a 10-minute shot of a lecture, performed by Joana Barrios, revolving around four colonial statues, which are stored today at the Fortress of Cacheu, one of the first bastions constructed by the Portuguese in 1588 in order to facilitate slave trade in the West African country of Guinea Bissau. Barrios evokes symbolic conflicts by tracing back different contexts in which the statues make an appearance: on a pedestal during Portuguese colonialism, dethroned and broken in pieces after Independence in the film Sans Soleil by Chris Marker, as background ghosts in Mortu Nega by Flora Gomes, and finally displayed at the Cacheu fort. The montage is a process that takes place before shooting, so that the image production is a result of a performative assemblage between text, acting, projected image and the framing of the camera by the director of photography, Matthias Biber.

Written, directed and produced by Filipa César, performed by Joana Barrios, photography by Matthias Biber, sound by Nuno da Luz, production assistance by Diana Artus, Jorge Biague, Joaquim Gomes and Rita Pestana.

Shot as a live performance in the context of the What Happened 2081? conference, curated by Georg Diez and Christopher Roth at the Kunst-Werke Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin.