Colloquium
Winds of Change - How to read the independences 5 decades on
May 15 and 16, 2025
Macau Cultural and Scientific Centre (Lisbon)
Programme
9h30 | Opening
Carmen Amado Mendes (President of the Scientific and Cultural Centre of Macau); Guilherme d'Oliveira Martins (Executive Director of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation); Tiago Santos Pereira (Director of the Centre for Social Studies of the University of Coimbra); Maria Paula Meneses (Coordinator of the Colloquium, CES-UC).
10h-12h30 | 1st Session: Memories and commitments of the independences
- Luís Bernardo Honwana (Mozambican author)
- Francisca Van Dunem (Jurist, politician)
- José Luandino Vieira (Angolan author)
- Odete Semedo (Guinaen poet, researcher, politician)
- Pascoela Barreto (East-Timorese diplomat)
Panel presenter and moderator - Maria Paula Meneses (CES-UC)
Lunch: 12h30-14h30
14h30-16h15 | 2nd Session: Continuites of the liberation processes in the Global South
- Jean Michel Mabeko-Tali (Historian, Professor, Howard University, EUA)
- Carlos Castel-Branco (Economist, Professor, ISEG – University of Lisbon)
- Jorge Graça (Jurist and advisor for Public Policies, in Mozambique and East-Timor)
Panel presenter and moderator - Marisa Ramos Gonçalves (CES-UC)
16h30-17h15 – Break and book presentations
17h15-19h30 | Documentary Screening - Sonhámos um País by Isabel Noronha and Camilo de Sousa
(70 min; Producers: Mocik - Cineastas Moçambicanos Associados, Midas Filmes)
Synopsis: In the early 1970s, Camilo de Sousa left Lourenço Marques, Mozambique, travelled through Europe, joined the FRELIMO guerrillas and became a filmmaker. Today, living in Portugal, he returns to Mozambique to reunite with two brothers in arms. With Aleixo Caindi and Julião Papalo, he remembers olden times, when the joy of liberation gave way to the somber times in which the search for the ‘new man’ destroyed the dreams and illusions of a country. [Trailer]
16 May, 2025
10h-12h30 | 3rd Session: Legacies, heritages, and transformative policies
- Inocência Mata (Literary critic, Professor, University of Lisbon)
- Carlos Sérgio Monteiro Ferreira (Journalist)
- Benedito Machava (Historian and Professor, Yale University, USA)
- Laura Soares Abrantes (Diplomat, Permanent Representative of East-Timor to the CPLP)
Panel presenter and moderator - Margarida Calafate Ribeiro (CES-UC)
Lunch: 12h30-14h
14h-14h30 – Tour of the Macau Cultural and Scientific Centre Museum
14h45-16h30 | 4th Session: Near futures for redesigning democracy, human rights, development, and the environment.
- Sumaila Jaló (Guinean activist, UC PhD candidate)
- Jessemusse Cacinda (Mozambican author, UC PhD candidate)
- Victor Barros (Researcher at IHC/IN2PAST – NOVA Universidade de Lisboa)
- Berta Antonieta Tilman (East-timorese activist, MA studnet at SOAS, University of London)
Panel presenter and moderator - Natália Bueno (CES-UC)
16h45-17h30 – Break and book presentations
17h30-19h30 | Documentary screening Chão Verde de Pássaros Escritos by Sandra Inês Cruz
(78 min; Producers: Um Segundo Filmes)
Synopsis: Chão Verde de Pássaros Escritos follows Luandino Vieira’s steady journey towards a free Angola. The return to Tarrafal, where the author was incarcerated for eight years, brings to light old prison writings - loose papers, letters, telegrams, diaries, book projects - and opens windows onto distant dreams, fears, resistance and withdrawals, independences. And to literature, always. Shot between Minho, Lisbon and Cape Verde, Chão Verde de Pássaros Escritos is a possible account of the costs of Angola’s liberation. [Trailer]