Transitions revisited: The end of the Portuguese colonial empire in Luso-African cinema (1974–2014)

Abstract

The 1974 Carnation Revolution set one of the greatest upheavals of LusoAfrican contemporary history in motion. It brought about the end of almost half a century of dictatorship and 500 years of colonial rule, which had become anachronistic and had been opposed by various independence movements since the 1950s. For Angola, Cape Verde, East Timor, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique and São Tomé and Príncipe, 1974 meant the end of a long fight for independence, but also sparked civil war, massacres, displacement and migration. The process of coming to terms with these events is still incomplete. For Portugal, it meant coping with the loss of its empire, being confined to its European territory and accepting its own postcolonial condition.