Spell Reel by Filipa César Luta Ca Caba Inda and Spectre Productions, 2017
Portuguese artist Filipa César’s first feature film – the experimental documentary Spell Reel (2017) – is a poetic montage that explores the processes of recovery, archiving and display of a collection of abandoned film reels produced by Guinea-Bissau resistance fighters during and after their war of independence against Portugal (1963-1974).
Numerous entities appear in this highly collaborative project, but two figures, neither of whom contributed directly to the film, have particular presence: Amílcar Cabral, the Bissau-Guineans’ anticolonialist leader and the French Marxist film-essayist Chris Marker. Across continents, these figures shared beliefs in revolutionary politics and the importance of both education
