National representation in the age of transnational film: a Lusophone story

The concept of Transnational Cinema is usually defined by its opposition to the idea of National Cinema, which enjoys a long tradition in the field of Film Studies. However, the representation of Angola found in the films made under the collaboration of Angolan director Zezé Gamboa and Portuguese producer Fernando Vendrell, O Herói [The Hero] from 2004 and O Grande Kilapy [The Great Kilapy] from 2012, paint a much more nuanced picture of the relationship between national and transnational cinemas that is marked by historical material and affective ties that cannot be dissociated from the legacies of Portuguese colonialism. Drawing from the productive relation between national film and postcolonial condition inherent to these films, this article shows how the work by Gamboa and Vendrell challenges established notions in the study of film echoing within and beyond the Portuguese-speaking world.