African Film Series on Ousmane Sembène Completed
| We recently completed the First African Film Series (on the late Ousmane Sembène — January 1, 1923 to June 9, 2007) ever held at Messiah College. Sembène’s influence on African filmmaking has often led him to be called “the Father of African film.” Perhaps this is not quite accurate, at least if it is taken in a directly generative manner, but in terms of social influence and shaping of narrative themes, it has an appropriate sense.
We showed two of his films, Moolaadé and Ceddo, both of them dramatic pieces (by-and-large). It would’ve been nice to show one of his biting and insightful comedies, like Xala or Faat Kiné as well, but we could only afford the Public Performance Rights for two films. |
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MOOLAADÉ —The stirring, sumptuous, and even buoyant Moolaadé, is perhaps Sembène’s smoothest blend of politics and entertainment. It won the Grand Prize in the Un Certain Regard at the Cannes film festival in 2004, getting the festival’s best reviews. It makes for deep viewer pleasure, this keenly empathetic, dramatically fine-tuned polemic. See Woman is the Future of Man: an Interview with Ousmane Sembène on Moolaadé
CEDDO —[The Outsiders] is the story of the common people in one village and their struggle to maintain traditional African ways in the face of both Muslim and European influences from outside the village. The Senegalese release of Ceddo was heavily censored, ostensibly for a problem with Sembène’s spelling of the title, but more probably for its themes. In defiance of the censors, Sembène distributed fliers at theaters describing the censored scenes and released it uncut for the international market. See a review of Ceddo by James Leahy originally published in the Monthly Film Bulletin (vol. 49, no. 576, January 1982) on the film’s initial U.K. release. |
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The African Film Series was Sponsored by
Department of History
The Honors Program
Department of English
Department of Communications
The History Club
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