红树林学校 Skola di Tarafe

In 1960s and 70s Guinea-Bissau, militant rebels took up arms against the colonial power. A documentary fable based on historical research.

During Guinea-Bissau’s struggle for independence from Portugal in the 1960s, rebel leader Amílcar Cabral launched an ambitious education programme to fight the Portuguese colonial power. In ‘Mangrove School’, Filipa César and local historian and activist Sónia Vaz Borges explore the history and impact of the movement. In the 1960s and 70s, the nomadic guerrilla schools under the mangrove trees became symbols of the people’s anti-colonial struggle, including against the colonial mentality itself. A school system set up by militant rebels, which for the same reason became the target of bomb attacks during the country’s long struggle for independence. Based on historical research, and at the crossroads of art and political theory, César and Borges revisit the history of the mangrove schools in a documentary fable of resistance, independence and autonomous forms of education.