When the Archive Vomits Salazar: Representations of Women in Contemporary Portuguese Film

Starting from the provocative Paula Rego painting entitled “Salazar Vomiting the Homeland,” this essay discusses some filmic representations of women during Salazar’s New State. With a view to questioning the public representations of the dictatorship, a selection of films made by contemporary Portuguese filmmakers that mobilize public and private memories and a diversity of archival materials is analyzed. From a feminine and comparative perspective, this essay examines the epistemological gaps of the archive and reflects on how the latter, besides unveiling the intricate processes of ideological manipulation that illustrate the violence of the archive and its disciplinary power (Derrida 1995; Foucault 1972), interrogate cinema as a privileged means of formation, circulation, and reconfiguration of cultural memory