Inglória

Curator: Elina Heikka

Inglória (video, 1972–1974 / 2024)

‘The video summarises almost 26 months of compulsory military service in Mozambique.

When I had to enter the army in October 1970, I did everything I could not to be mobilised. I tried and succeeded in taking the Photography and Cinema course and when I took the course, at the Army Cartographic Services in Lisbon, I did everything I could to get a good grade, to avoid being mobilised for the Overseas War. But at that time (1971), all young men ended up being mobilised.

I left by plane on 21 February 1972 and ended up in the northern capital, Nampula.

As I was the highest-ranking soldier of the mobilised photo-cines, I was required by General Kaúlza de Arriaga, Commander-in-Chief of the Mozambican Armed Forces, to be part of his staff on his tours of duty in the former colony.

Once the photographs of the reports had been visualised, they were distributed by the newspapers of the former colony. Whenever I travelled on duty, I used another camera and so I was able to capture images that had nothing to do with the war.

The ‘weapons’ of Photo-Cine soldier João António Marques Valentim, who was at all times against the war, were a camera and a microphone.’

Text Marques Valentim

Galeria do Paço – UMinho
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