Today a state on India’s southwest coast, Goa was, from 1505 to 1961, a Portuguese colony, and only formally reconised by Portugal as part of India in 1974. In his dense, lyrical meditation on his ancestral homeland, the Indian-American artist and researcher Suneil Sanzgiri combines 3D reconstructions, archival materials and more traditional documentary footage to probe complex questions of exploitation, identity and liberation in the wake of centuries of colonisation that still scar the Goan landscape. The third in a ‘series of works about memory, diaspora and decoloniality’, Golden Jubilee (2021) is a provocative and often haunting work of experimental filmmaking, upending Eurocentric narratives while rejecting familiar tropes and easy answers at every turn.
Portugal stole Goa’s lands and narratives. Can they ever truly be returned?
Director: Suneil Sanzgiri
videoChildhood and adolescence
‘Maybe it’s a memory that I’ve made up’ – when grief washes over childhood memories
14 minutes
videoMusic
Melody, rhythm and piety: the rich forms and meanings of Indian classical music
17 minutes
videoDemography and migration
How the world’s harshest lockdown hit India’s millions of migrant workers
27 minutes
videoNations and empires
Colonialism as mitosis – the rise and fall of empires, rendered as cell division
4 minutes
videoPolitics and government
‘Without a poster, you don’t exist!’ – on the curious political banners of Mumbai
20 minutes
videoWar and peace
When his grandfather won’t talk about the war, Bastien is left to his imagination
15 minutes
videoThe environment
Sand grab: how Singapore’s growth is taking the land out from under Cambodians’ feet
16 minutes
videoChildhood and adolescence
Each memory in different strokes: how four siblings recall a tumultuous childhood
19 minutes
videoTechnology and the self
A ‘virtual outing’ on Google Maps reveals a treasured image from Diego’s past
6 minutes