Sambizanga is the feature debut of Sarah Maldoror, who passed away due to complications from COVID-19 in 2020. The daughter of emigrants from Guadeloupe, she worked as an assistant director on Gillo Pontecorvo’s The Battle of Algiers (1966) and studied film with Ousmane Sembène in Moscow. The film is set in Luanda, the previous capital of Angola as a Portuguese territory under colonial rule, and Sambizanga, the base of the working class. It focuses on Maria, who is looking for her husband Domingos Xavier, who makes a living as a tractor driver but joins the National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA), a dangerous secret. Sambizanga is about a figure who cannot reveal his identity. At the same time, it is about the subjugated class who remembers their husbands or comrades branded as traitors by the ruling class. Featuring a cast of nonprofessional actors who were involved in anti-colonial resistance in Africa, Sambizanga is unfamiliar but close. The film portrays people who have to live their lives and protest without time to grieve those whom they have lost. The film leaves a plaintive and intense impression by recollecting old concerns from history and the memories of subordinates. [KIM Seo-yul]