Mangrove School

During Guinea-Bissau’s struggle for independence between 1963 and 1974, led by the agricultural engineer, political organizer, and poet Amílcar Cabral, an ambitious education programme was launched to fight Portuguese colonial power. The revolutionaries built more than 150 schools in the liberated zones, at least one of them was hidden in the tidal mangrove forest, made from natural materials at hand. Inspired by this history, Mangrove School is a collective fabulation developed by Sónia Vaz Borges and Filipa César together with the Malafo community in the Guinean region of Oio. The tabulated scenes and off voices are based on lived experiences as well as a three-week workshop. The film discusses an anticolonial pedagogy that is materially and philosophically informed by the ecological environment.