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"One of the most remarkable artists in the world" — Jack Kroll, Newsweek

"The Dean of African Filmmakers" — J. Hoberman

SEMBÈNE January 4 - 6

Africa's foremost filmmaker, the late Ousmane Sembène (1923-2007) directed the first African feature, the continent's first colour movie and the first shot in an indigenous language (Wolof). Booted out of school in Senegal in his early teens, Sembène joined the Senegalese sharpshooters of the Free French for a four-year stint of fighting. Demobilized, he joined a West African railroad strike, became a shipyard union activist in Marseilles, began to write and, by the early 60s, was a major novelist. But realizing that literature had a limited audience, he went back to film school, with his adroitly told efforts winning awards at festivals worldwide and bringing international attention to sub-Saharan African cinema.

Sembène wasn't only a sharp critic of the internal problems of modern Africa, but also a passionate advocate of African pride and autonomy. This series collects Sembène's seminal works not yet available on DVD. Thanks to New Yorker Films. Notes adapted from Film Forum in New York.

"The seminal force behind sub-Saharan African cinema, and at the same time the world's most guileless filmmaker... Sembène's work has ached with austerity- possessed of a voice as clear and uncomplicated as sunlight." —Michael Atkinson, The Village Voice

"Both a populist and a universalist... It is hard to overstate his importance, or his influence on African film."— A. O. Scott, The New York Times

BLACK GIRL January 4 & 10, 7:00

Senegal 1966 // Director: Ousmane Sembène // 65 min // 35mm

Based on an actual event, Sembène's first feature combines the semi-doc technique of neo-realism with the simple, freewheeling style of the early New Wave. It's an unsparing attack on neo-colonial exploitation that put African cinema on the map. Diouana finds her pleasant babysitting chores for a French family topped by an invitation to accompany them back to France; but once there, she finds she's just "the black girl." Preceded by Borom Sarret (1964, 20 min), Sembène's first film, a day in the life of a poor cart driver.

"These films will make nearly everything else you watch for the next week feel bloated and nonessential by contrast." —Joshua Land, The Village Voice

MANDABI (The Money Order) January 5, 9:15; January 9, 7:00

Senegal 1968 // Director: Ousmane Sembène // 90 min // 35mm

Illiterate, unemployed, fiftyish Ibrahima Deng suddenly gets a windfall: a money order from his streetsweeper nephew in France for 20,000 francs (roughly $100). But as friends, relations, and debtors close in, he finds he can't cash it without an identity card, which requires a proof of birth, which...Sembène's first colour film is a darkly humorous satire of Kafkaesque bureaucracy and corruption, as Deng concludes "honesty is a sin in this country."

"A richly comic and multi-textual first cousin to The Bicycle Thief. " —J. Hoberman.

EMITAI (God of Thunder) January 4, 9:00; January 9, 8:45

Senegal 1971 // Director: Ousmane Sembène // 103 min // 35mm

"I dedicate this film to all militants of the African cause."—Ousmane Sembène . When, during WWII, French troops come to a Diola village to conscript the men and confiscate the rice, the women hide the crop and the elders consult with the gods, but events slowly escalate to tragedy. Based on an actual incident, filming on location in the village of Dimbering took about seven weeks spread over a year . The film's final horrific image was blacked out by the French.

XALA (The Curse) January 6, 9:15; January 11, 7:00

Senegal 1974 // Director: Ousmane Sembène // 123 min // 35mm

Animal Farm in Africa. Fiftyish fat cat El Hadji Abdoukadr Beye enjoys a flourishing import business, two wives, and a white Mercedes—and now he's appointed to the Chamber of Commerce. Time to add that third wife; but on the wedding night he fails to rise to the occasion—could he be the victim of a xala? Savagely funny satire of the new post-independence ruling class that, despite government censorship, broke Senegalese box office records.

"A masterpiece ...considered one of the best films to come out of Africa." — Time Out New York

CEDDO January 5, 7:00; January 10, 8:45

Senegal 1977 // Director: Ousmane Sembène // 120 mins // 35mm

In a 19th-century village, a princess is kidnapped, and a Muslim imam struggles against a Catholic priest for religious and political control, while the ceddo ("ched-doe"), or common people, try to hold on to their traditional ways. Banned in Senegal—ostensibly over the "European" spelling of the title, but more likely for its criticism of Islam, —Sembène's historical epic condenses two centuries of African history into a thriller of oppression and intolerance.

"Achieves an operatic orchestration of raw forces similar to Eisenstein's Alexander Nevsky or Kurosawa's Seven Samurai. " — The Village Voice.

CAMP DE THIAROYE January 7 & 13, 7:30

Algeria/Senegal/Tunisia 1987 // Directors: Ousmane Sembène, Thierno Faty Sow // 157 min // 35mm

In 1944, African infantrymen, back from slugging it out with the Nazis and liberating Paris, relax in a transit camp in Senegal; but as they gag on inedible food and wonder what happened to that back pay, they realize transit should read "prison", and "war heroes" should read "uppity natives." And then things get worse. Based on an actual historical incident, it won the Special Jury Prize at Venice.

"A magisterial critique of the colonial mentality." —J. Hoberman.

GUELWAAR January 6 & 12, 7:00

France/Germany/Senegal 1993 // Director: Ousmane Sembène // 115 min // 35mm

"Alternately wise and very funny in its treatment of tribalism and in its grasp of neocolonial corruption, Sembene's seventh feature has so much to say about contemporary Africa that you emerge from it with a sense of understanding an entire society from top to bottom."—Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader . Bad enough that political activist Guelwaar ("the noble one") has just died mysteriously, right after a mesmerizing speech "but where's the body" Misidentified and buried in a Muslim cemetery"—but he was a Catholic! The solution is obvious, but the family's disinterment plans rapidly derail as a bitingly comic firestorm of red tape, interfamilial disputes and religious turf wars threaten to escalate into mayhem.
New York Times: Obituary on Ousmane Sembene

Sembene essay on WBAI.org

Photos at: http://www.vifc.org/fileshare/login.php

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