Amílcar

In 2013, during a trip to Cape Verde, I discovered the story of Amílcar Cabral. I was fascinated by the driving force and determination of Amílcar that led him to devote his life to achieving a dream that seemed to be crazy: the union between two countries to fight for their independence. Who was that young African agricultural engineer? How did he obtain international support for a small territory to defy Portugal? That is how I set up a small team and started interviewing his friends, family and colleagues. I found out that Amílcar Cabral is, even today, a controversial character who gives rise to opposite points of view both in Guinea and Cape Verde, as well as in Portugal. It hasn’t been easy to launch a project like this bearing in mind that I am neither African nor Portuguese. But that fact has actually enabled me to be impartial in my approach to the subject, in a fair-minded way that those who can bear witness on Amilcar trust. During the last five years, Amílcar has haunted my mind. The documentary has become a romantic project over which I have kept thinking and rethinking, having devoted myself to it in total creative freedom. In this biopic on Cabral, I envisage his life and thoughts as a way of exploring the vulnerability of human beings and the need to be attentive. We are going through difficult, hectic times in which intolerance proliferates in Europe and beyond. Today, Cabral’s life reminds us that the social justice rights acquired by the people from our civilization are not eternal but must rather be recovered by each generation and that the worst possible danger we face is oblivion. A luta sempre continua (The struggle always goes on)…