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In this paper, I will examine how films recreate memories of resistance and define, both visually and in film narration, the difference between imperial aggressors and local protagonists of resistance. The examples are taken from the Brazilian film Quilombo that describes the resistance of the 17th and 18th century Maroon communities against the onslaught of the Portuguese colonial powers (political and military). Med Hondo’s (Mauretania) Sarraounia deals with the resistance in West Africa against the Jihad of the Sokoto Fulani and the (in)famous French “exploratory” expedition under the command of Voulet. Both films are based on “real” histories as they were generally communicated from the colonialist perspective. And both films present themselves as counter-discursive revisions of history. The analysis in this paper focuses on the visual representation of the resistance heroes, first isolating them from the continuity of film narration in a type of still image, thus emphasizing the contrastive imagology between aggression and resistance. In the second step, aggressors and resistors are examined in terms of how they relate socially to their fellow combatants and to their communities. The obvious difference is that the aggressors have no immediate community to relate to socially or emotionally. Particular emphasis is put on the associative and symbolic meanings of the scenic setting, in which the antagonistic characters are placed.

(2001). Farewell to the old Standard Bank National Arts Festival in Grahamstown? South African Theatre Journal: Vol. 15, No. 1, pp. 178-191.

(1999). HEROES OF SOUTH AFRICAN HISTORY AS OPERATIC HEROES: AKIN EUBA'S CHAKA AND NBONGEMI NGEMA'S THE ZULU. South African Theatre Journal: Vol. 13, No. 1, pp. 103-108.

This chapter examines the ways public visual culture reorients images, aphorisms, and cultural norms into anti-AIDS messages by focusing on HIV/AIDS poster campaigns in Malawi. It shows how frequently seen and strategically placed public placards can make a state-sponsored campaign effective in transforming entire landscapes of discourse to conform to desired parameters of HIV/AIDS knowledge. The posters display moral, ethical, and aesthetic values that are current in sections of Malawian society, thus offering one strategy for government intervention in a multi-front battle against a devastating and vexing pandemic. The concluding statement of all these posters is: Kukhulupirirana wamba sikungakutetezeni ku kachilombo ka HIV (Just trusting each other cannot protect you against the HIV virus). The term kachilombo (meaning virus) provides a remarkable example of how African languages manage to transliterate medical, technical, or scientific terms into elegant and precisely coined phrases through allegorical or proverbial figurative speech.