The National Film Institute of Guinea-Bissau (INCA – Instituto Nacional de Cinema e Audiovisual) is home to important documentary material from the period of the country’s struggle for liberation (1963–1974) and first years of independence. There are also foreign film productions there which reflect the geopolitical relationships of solidarity with other countries in the 1970s.
The historical film material from the period of militant cinema in Guinea-Bissau was almost completely destroyed in the civil war of 1998/99. Only a small part of this material survived this destruction. Poor storage conditions lead to the quickly advancing decay of the film material caused by vinegar syndrome. As part of the Animated Archive project, the film holdings were able to be digitised with the support of the German Foreign Office’s Cultural Preservation program. Since then, several projects and events were dedicated to the revision and historical contextualisation of the archive material.
In the next months, an online streaming platform will be realised within the framework of Archive außer sich that aims at facilitating a broader access for researchers to the archive material. The platform will be part of Mediateca Onshore, a nomadic arts and culture platform in Guinea Bissau hosting workshops and productions in the fields of film, performance, archival practices, agro-ecology and traditional knowledge as a contribution to social, economical and environmental justice.
The main part of the archive holdings consist of unedited image and sound footage. The artist and filmmaker Filipa César made a selection of a few clips for the January arsenal 3 program. The footage documents a visit of Luís Cabral in East Berlin in 1976.