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L'Empire
Sonhrai(1963)
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Sembene's first film
is a documentary on the history of the Songhai empire, produced
by the government of the Republic of Mali. In French. 16mm. Black
and white. 20 minutes.
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Borom Sarret(1963)
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Spare
masterpiece of protest against economic exploitation. Depicts
the typical
daily encounters of a cart driver in Dakar, Senegal. In French with
English subtitles. 16mm. Black and white. 20 minutes. |
Won First Prize at the
Tours Film Festival (France) |
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Niaye(1964)
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Narrated
by a village griot, "Niaye" is the tragic tale of a young
girl whose pregnancy scandalizes her community. A visiting worker
is acccused of being responsible for the pregnancy, but subsequently
it is discovered that her own father is the culprit. The community
strives to keep the scandal from the French colonial administartion.
In French. 16 mm. Black and white. 35 minutes. |
Won a Prize at the Locarno
Film Festival (Switzerland) |
| La
noire de...(1966) |
Sembene's
first feature film, known in English as "Black Girl,"
made a profound impression at several international film festivals
in 1966. The evolution of the African cinema can probably be dated
from this point. Shot in a simple, freewheeling style reminiscent
of the early New Wave, it tells a direct, bitter, unambiguous story
of exile and despair. The heroine, Diouanna, is a Senegalese maid
taken to the Riviera by her French employers. It is only when she
is out of Africa that she realizes what being African means: it
means being a thing, no longer Diouanna, but "the black girl."
Jean Vigo Prize, 1966. In French with English sub-titles. 16 mm.
Black and white. 60 minutes.
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Jean Vigo Prize (Paris)
Also won, the Grand Prize at the Dakar Black Arts Festival
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| Mandabi(1968) |
Based
on Sembène's short novel The Money Order, this feature film is a deceptively
simple story of a man who receives a money order from his nephew in
Paris and attempts to cash it. "Mandabi" is a deeply moving,
witty, masterful portrait of a vain man whose vanity pales against
the chicanery and callousness of the youthful ambitious petite bourgeoisie.
In Wolof with English sub-titles. 16 mm. Color. 90 minutes. |
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| Taaw(1970) |
Taaw
is a young unemployed man in modern Senegal who fends off accusations
of laziness for his unemployment and makes a home for his pregnant
girlfriend who has been rejected by her family. In Wolof with English
sub-titles. 16 mm. Color. 24 minutes. |
Won the Asmara Gold Lion
Prize, Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) |
| Emitai(1971) |
"Emitai"
is a historical film that functions also as a timeless allegory. In
his clear, spare style, Semb6ne depicts the clash between French colonists
and the Diola of Senegal in the closing days of World War II. It is
the women who provide the first voice of resistance and the film conveys
their social power as the retainers of ancient myths, rituals, and
recent history. In Diola and French with English sub-titles. 16 mm.
Color. 101 minutes. |
Golden Bear Prize at the Moscow Film Festival.
First Afro-Asian Prize 1972 Tachken Festival (Soviet Union)
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| Xala(1974) |
Sembene's
savage and hilarious satire of the modern African bourgeoisie was
heavily censored in Senegal. Forsaking the more obvious (and politically
acceptable) targets of European exploitation and racism, Semb6ne here
zeroes in on a far touchier subject: the entire blackfacing of white
colonial policies after independence was granted. The hero of the
film is a self-satisfied, westernized Senegalese businessman who is
suddenly struck down with the xala, an ancient Senegalese curse rendering
him impotent. His vain search for a cure becomes a metaphor for the
impossibility of Africans achieving liberation through dependence
on western technology and bureaucratic structures. In French with
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Karlovy-Vary Secial Prize (Czech Republic)
Silver Medal at the Figueria de Fos Film Festival (Portugal)
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| Ceddo(1976) |
An
exciting political thriller concerning the kidnapping of a beautiful
princess is used to examine the confrontation between opposing forces
in the face of Muslim expansion. The ceddo, or commoner class, refuse
to submit to Islam. Set loosely in the 19th century, "Ceddo"
is not strictly a historical film, as it ranges far and wide to include
philosophy, fantasy, militant politics, and a couple of electrifying
leaps across the centuries. In Wolof with English sub-titles. 16 mm.
Color. 120 minutes. |
Special Award,
Los Angeles, 1980 |
| Camp
de Thiaroye(1989) |
Towards
the end of 1944, at a bleak military transit camp in Senegal, soldiers
from several parts of Africa who have fought with the Free French
army to overthrow fascism in Europe, await demobilization, severance
pay, and a trip home. French Captain Raymond sincerely tries to convince
his Senegalese NCO Diatta that the massacres by French troops, such
as that in which Diatta's parents were killed, are a banished phenomenon
from the Vichy past. The film's dialectic is intent on proving him
wrong. By the end, Raymond has been ostracized as a Communist by his
fellow officers, and gradually the attempt by the French command to
cheat the African veterans out of their severance pay provokes a mutiny.
The French response is an armored attack on the camp with a near total
loss of life. "Camp de Thiaroye" is true both to the historical
record of the massacre and to the underlying culture of European imperialism.
In Wolof and French with English sub-titles. Color. 153 minutes. |
45th Venice mostra (Italy):
-Jury's Special Grand Prize
-Golden Ciak Prize
-Unicef Nuovo Prize
-Prize Youth and Cinema
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| Guelwaar(1992) |
In
choosing "Gelwaar: An African Legend for the 21 st Century"
for the opening of the 13th Pan-African Film Festival (in Ouagadougou,
Burkina Faso, February 1993), the organizers of this event sought
to honor Ousmane Semb6ne as the father of African cinema. "Gelwaar"
is based on a true story: The body of Pierre Henri Thioune, alias
Gelwaar and leader of a Christian community, is mistakenly delivered
to Muslims who bury him in a Muslim cemetery following the teachings
of Islam. When the mistake is found out, the Christians seek to recover
"their" body. Semb6ne in this film develops familiar themes:
real versus imaginary independence, women's emancipation, the brain.
In French and Wolof with English sub-titles.115minutes. Color |
Gold Medal at the Venice 49th Mostra |
| L'heroisme
au quotidien(1999) |
Set in a small village in rural Senegal,
Heroisme au quotidien is the first of a trilogy (Faat Kine and Moolaade)
Ousmane Sembene was devoted to the awakening and daily heroism of
African women at the beginning of the new century. Hitherto exploited
in their daily toil and for centuries enslaved by patricarchal and
religious obscurantism and indoctrination, teh women of a small village
suddenly start hearing new voices broadcast from the city in national
languages. Channelled through antiquated battery-powered radio sets,
a contact is born with the outsideworld; the world they share with
other women. Their new knowledge blows open teh walls of their prison,
broadens their horizon and challenges their centuries-old relation
of subordination to their men. Heroism au quotidien is teh voice of
change; teh sudden discovery of a new Value (freedom) that leads to
a revolt a la Camus. It heralds a new dawn for African women and for
African men. |
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| Faat
Kine(2000) |
Sembene tackles the question of women's
lives in contemporary Dakar, Senegal's bustling capital in this warm
often funny story of a single mother, her two children, two ex-husbands,
aged mother and assorted friends. Sembene contexualizes his heroine's
thoroughly modern triumphs and anxieties culturally and politically
in Dakar where women's lives have been shaped by tribal custom and
male prejudice as much as by their cutting-edge aspirations. |
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| Moolaade(2004) |
Moolaadé is a rousing polemic directed
against the still common African practice of female circumcision.
The action is set in a small African village, where four young girls
facing ritual "purification" flee to the household of Collé Ardo
Gallo Sy, a strong-willed woman who has managed to shield her own
teenage daughter from mutilation. Collé invokes the time-honored
custom of moolaadé (sanctuary) to protect the fugitives, and
tension mounts as the ensuing stand-off pits Collé against
village traditionalists (both male and female) and endangers the
prospective marriage of her daughter to the heir-apparent to the
tribal throne. |
2004: Winner Cannes Film Festival ("Un Certain Regard");
Official Selections: New York Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival,
Chicago Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Mill Valley Film
Festival.
2005 : Philadelphia Liberty Bell; American
Association of Film Critics - Best Foreign Film of the Year;
Special Prize Marrakech Film Festival; Fespaco Ministry of Health
Prize
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