"If Africans do not tell their own stories, Africa will soon disappear." 

–Ousmane Sembène

 

SEMBÈNE: COMMEMORATING THE DIRECTOR’S CENTENNIAL YEAR

SEPTEMBER 8 – 21 AT FILM FORUM

 

RETROSPECTIVE OF FILMS DIRECTED BY OUSMANE SEMBÈNE

INCLUDING BLACK GIRL (1966), MANDABI (1968), MOOLAADÉ (2004) 

AND NEW 4K RESTORATIONS OF EMITAÏ (1971), XALA (1975), and CEDDO (1977)

 

SEMBÈNE, a two-week retrospective of the pioneering Senegalese auteur’s radical, groundbreaking work will run at Film Forum from Friday, September 8 through Thursday, September 21. The series spans across four decades, from his debut feature BLACK GIRL (1966), a harrowing drama widely celebrated as the first African film; to his Cannes-prize winning final film MOOLAADÉ (2004); and includes the U.S. theatrical premiere of three new 4K restorations – EMITAÏ (1971), XALA (1975), and CEDDO (1977); as well as his essential short films BOROM SARRET (1963), NIAYE (1964), and TAUW (1970), along with Samba Gadjigo and Jason Silverman’s documentary SEMBENE! (2015).

 

Africa’s foremost filmmaker Ousmane Sembène (1923-2007) not only directed the first African feature film, but also the continent's first color movie, and the first in an indigenous language (his own: Wolof). Born a French citizen in 1923, in the Casamance region of Senegal, a nation that had been under French rule since the late 1800s, his life was inextricably shaped by colonialism. He was booted from school in his early teens, reportedly, for striking a French teacher. Sembène worked odd jobs before joining the Senegalese sharpshooters of the Free French for a four-year stint, fighting across Africa, France, and Germany. Demobilized, he joined a massive West African railroad strike (on which he later based his seminal novel God's Bits of Wood in 1960), became a shipyard union activist in Marseilles, began to write, and, by the early 60s, was recognized as a major African novelist with such socially-critical works as Xala and Voltaïque, a collection of short stories including "Black Girl," which he would later adapt into his first feature film.

 

After Senegal gained independence from France in 1960, Sembène turned to film as a stronger tool for reaching his compatriots, realizing that literature had a limited audience among the mostly rural population in Africa. He studied film in Moscow for one year, before directing his first short in 1963, BOROM SARRET, which follows a day in the life of a poor cart driver, and a year later made another short, NIAYE, in which a young girl’s pregnancy upends her small community. In 1966 he directed his first feature film, BLACK GIRL, a harrowing drama which centers around a young Senegalese woman who moves to France to work for a white family; it combines neo-realism with the simple, freewheeling style of the early New Wave, in an unsparing attack on neo-colonial exploitation. It was the first feature film ever released by a sub-Saharan African director.

 

“Sembène used his work to attack systemic perfidy, hypocrisy, and oppression in all its forms: conscription of Africans into the French military in EMITAÏ (1971, later banned throughout French West Africa); an ineffectual, westernized black bourgeoisie in the brutal satire XALA (1975); Christian and Muslim attempts to impose themselves on African traditions in the deeply controversial CEDDO (1976); the practice of female genital mutilation in his final film, the all-out assault MOOLAADÉ (2004). Sembène was congenitally incapable of making indifferent films,” (Ashley Clarke). 

 

Sembène’s work has won numerous awards including at Cannes, Berlin, Venice, Moscow, and more, bringing international attention to sub-Saharan African cinema. In his nine features he was not only a sharp critic of the internal problems of modern Africa, but also a passionate advocate of African pride and autonomy. 

 

“While he had a late start as a moviemaker, his films got better with age. They were the work of a pioneer; fierce, didactic, abundantly alive with pride, shame, fury, hope and realism… Art was his activism. His movies were dramas that made you laugh, comedies that shook your heart, tracts that boiled the blood.”

– Wesley Morris, Boston Globe

 

"Sembène's films unflinchingly - yet playfully - examine the reality of contemporary Africa."

– Bérenice Reynaud, The New York Times

 

 

Public Screening Schedule

Subject to change

 

EMITAÏ

Senegal, 1971

Directed by Ousmane Sembène

Starring Andongo Diabon, Robert Fontaine, Michel Renaudeau, Ousmane Camara

Screenplay by Ousmane Sembène

In French and Wolof with English subtitles

Approx. 103 min. DCP.

Friday, September 8 at 12:20, 5:10 

Saturday, September 9 at 8:00 

Sunday, September 10 at 2:50

Monday, September 11 at 8:10  

Tuesday, September 12 at 3:00

Wednesday, September 20 at 5:10

Thursday, September 21 at 12:30

 

XALA 

Senegal, 1975

Directed by Ousmane Sembène

Starring Thierno Leye, Seune Samb, Douta Seck, Younousse Sèye

Screenplay by Ousmane Sembène

In French and Wolof with English subtitles

Approx. 123 min. DCP.

Friday, September 8 at 2:35, 7:50

Saturday, September 9 at 12:15, 5:30

Sunday, September 10 at 5:15

Thursday, September 14 at 3:00

Friday, September 15 at 3:10  

Saturday, September 16 at 3:40

Wednesday, September 20 at 12:30

Thursday, September 21 at 2:45

 

CEDDO 

Senegal, 1977

Directed by Ousmane Sembène

Starring Tabata Ndiaye, Moustapha Yade, Alioune Fall, Matoura Dia

Screenplay by Ousmane Sembène

In French and Wolof with English subtitles 

Approx. 120 min. DCP.

Saturday, September 9 at 3:00

Sunday, September 10 at 7:45

Monday, September 11 at 1:00

Tuesday, September 12 at 5:20 

Thursday, September 14 at 12:30

Sunday, September 17 at 1:20

Monday, September 18 at 3:40

Tuesday, September 19 at 12:30

Thursday, September 21 at 5:20 

 

SEMBENE!

U.S., Senegal, 2015

Directed by Jason Silverman, Samba Gadjigo

In English, French, and Wolof with English subtitles

Approx. 86 min. DCP.

Sunday, September 10 at 12:30

Thursday, September 14 at 5:50

 

MANDABI

Senegal, 1968

Directed by Ousmane Sembène

Starring Makhourédia Guèye, Ynousse N'Diaye, Isseu Niang

Screenplay by Ousmane Sembène

In French and Wolof with English subtitles

Approx. 92 min. DCP.

Tuesday, September 12 at 1:00, 7:50

Wednesday, September 13 at 2:20

Friday, September 15 at 1:00, 8:00

Sunday, September 17 at 5:40

Monday, September 18 at 12:15, 8:00

Tuesday, September 19 at 3:00

 

BLACK GIRL

Senegal, France, 1966

Directed by Ousmane Sembène

Starring Mbissine Thérèse Diop, Anne-Marie Jelinek

Screenplay by Ousmane Sembène

In French and Wolof with English Subtitles

Approx. 65 min. DCP.

Wednesday, September 13 at 12:40, 4:20

Friday, September 15 at 6:00

Saturday, September 16 at 12:15

Sunday, September 17 at 3:50 

Monday, September 18 at 2:10 

Tuesday, September 19 at 5:30 

Wednesday, September 20 at 3:10

Thursday, September 21 at 7:50

 

3 SHORTS BY SEMBÈNE:

BOROM SARRET

Senegal, 1964 

Approx. 18 min. DCP.

 

NIAYE

Senegal, 1964

Approx. 29 min. DCP.

 

TAUW

Senegal, 1970

Starring Ibrahima Boye, Fatim Diagne, Amadi Dieng

Approx. 26 min. 16mm print courtesy Yale Film Archive.

Wednesday, September 13 at 6:00

Saturday, September 16 at 1:50

 

MOOLAADÉ

Senegal, 2004

Directed by Ousmane Sembène

Starring Fatoumata Coulibaly, Maïmouna Hélène Diarra, Salimata Traoré, Dominique Zeïda

Screenplay by Ousmane Sembène

In Bambara and French with English subtitles

Approx. 124 min. 35mm print courtesy Curzon Artificial Eye.

Wednesday, September 13 at 7:40

Tuesday, September 19 at 7:10

 

GUELWAAR

Senegal, 1992

Directed by Ousmane Sembène

Starring Abou Camara, Marie Augustine Diatta, Mame Ndoumbé Diop

Screenplay by Ousmane Sembène

In French and Wolof with English subtitles

Approx. 115 min. 35mm print courtesy Harvard Film Archive.

Thursday, September 14 at 7:50

Saturday, September 16 at 6:20

 

CAMP DE THIAROYE

Senegal, 1988

Directed by Ousmane Sembène, Thierno Faty Sow

Starring Sidiki Bakaba, Hamed Camara, Ismaël Lô, Philippe Chamelat

Screenplay by Ousmane Sembène, Thierno Faty Sow

In French, English, and Wolof with English subtitles

Approx. 153 min. 35mm print courtesy Harvard Film Archive.

Sunday, September 17 at 7:40

Wednesday, September 20 at 7:25

 

 

At Film Forum

209 West Houston St

New York, NY 10014

https://filmforum.org