Behind the Lines (1971) Margareth Dickinson

In 1971 Margaret Dickinson made one of the defining films of FRELIMO’s (The Liberation Front of Mozambique) armed struggle against Portuguese colonialism in Mozambique, an anti-colonial war that had then been raging for nearly ten years. The film was shot in the Niassa province of Mozambique, an area that, during the making of the documentary, came under attack during the ‘Gordion Knot’ offensive with which the Portuguese army hoped to crush FRELIMO’s guerilla army once and for all. Behind the Lines features interviews with combatents and men and women who as FRELIMO cadres come to have opportunities for education and political action that would otherwise have been impossible. The film documents how the struggle transformed the lives of all those who participated in it, and how the liberated zones functioned as a laboratory in which FRELIMO could start to provide health care and education for the people of Mozambique in anticipation of Independence.