Michael Kerbel writing in The Village Voice compared Sambizanga to Soviet Russian filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein's 1925 masterpiece Battleship Potemkin in terms of its political significance.[8] Only after the Carnation Revolution was the film able to be released in Portugal on October 19, 1974.[citation needed] Guardian film writer Mark Cousins included it in a 2012 list of ten best African films and called it "as bold, as well-lit as Caravaggio paintings".[9]