Biography
Ousmane Sembène
Contributed by Jonathan Howell and José Lopez, New Yorker Films; Mahen Bonetti, African Film Festival New York; Samba Gadjigo, Mount Holyoke College.
Africa’s foremost filmmaker, Ousmane Sembène (1923-2007) directed not only the first African feature film, but also the continent’s first color movie and the first shot in an indigenous language. 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 across Africa, France, and Germany.
Demobilized, he joined a mammoth West African railroad strike, became a shipyard union activist in Marseilles, began to write and, by the early 60s, was recognized as a major African novelist. But pushing forty, and realizing that literature had a limited audience in Africa, he went back to (film) school, with his efforts winning awards at festivals around the world and 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.
FILMOGRAPHY
- 2004 MOOLAADÉ
- 2000 FAAT KINÉ
- 1999 HEROISME AU QUOTIDIEN/DAILY HEROISM (short film)
- 1993 CULEWAAR
- 1987 CAM DE THIAROYE
- 1977 CEDDO
- 1974 XALA
- 1973 AFRICA AT THE OLIMPIC GAMES (documentary)
- 1972 AFRICAN BASKETBALL IN THE MUNICH OLYMPIC GAMES (documentary)
- 1971 EMITAÏ
- 1969 TAUW (short film)
- 1969 WOMEN AND THE TRAUMA OF POLYGAMY (documentary)
- 1969 THE AFFLICTIONS OF UNEMPLOYMENT (documentary)
- 1968 MANDABI (THE MONEY ORDER)
- 1965 LA NOIRE DE… (BLACK GIRL0
- 1964 NIAYE (short film)
- 1963 L`EMPIRE SONGHAI (short film)
