The Story of Sembene!: How Ousmane Sembene Invented African Cinema
Hi all. Has anyone seen this movie? I was invited to a screening next month. It looks fascinating.
By Bilge Ebiri
This year’s Sundance Film Festival was filled with movies about the love of movies: The drama smash Me and Earl and the Dying Girl and the documentary The Wolfpack both featured characters whose lives centered around a fascination with classic films, and who strove to re-create those films in their own way. But no film demonstrated the power of cinema more resonantly than Sembene!, directed by Samba Gadjigo and Jason Silverman, which screened as part of the world-documentary competition.
The Senegalese filmmaker Ousmane Sembene (1923–2007), often called the father of African cinema, had a seismic career. He effectively created an African film industry out of nothing: In 1963, with a used 16mm camera and leftover film stock sent by friends from Europe, he made a short called Borom Sarret (The Wagon Driver), considered the first African movie made by a black African. Until the independence of French West Africa in 1960, French colonial authorities had made it illegal for Africans to make films of their own, so countries like Senegal had no film equipment, no professional actors, and no funding; Sembene used friends and family to put the film together. “Any time I hear an American independent talking about his war story in getting a film made, I have to smile to myself and think of Ousmane Sembene,” says co-director Silverman.
In 1966, Sembene made La Noire de … (Black Girl), the first feature film ever released by a sub-Saharan African director; it was awarded France’s prestigious Prix Jean Vigo and put him on the map, making him a mainstay on the festival circuit. From there, his profile rose. With the politically charged epics Xala (1975), Ceddo (1977), and Camp de Thiaroye (1987), he created some of the most beautiful films of all time, courting both controversy and acclaim and ensuring that African cinema had a place on the world stage. Ceddo was so inflammatory it was banned in some African countries for its depiction of strife between Muslims and Christians. Thiaroye, about a colonial-era massacre of African troops by the French, was banned in France but won six awards at the 1987 Venice Film Festival. Sembene’s devastating final film, Moolade, about female genital mutilation, won the Un Certain Regard award at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival.
This post was originally published on February 10, 2015. With Sembene! opening in limited release this weekend, we're re-promoting it.
more: http://www.vulture.com/2015/02/how-ousmane-sembene-invented-african-cinema.html
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Thanks for the link. 
No, I haven't seen it, but will now watch for it.
Here's the trailer:
It's not streaming yet on Netflix. Amazon lists it as available to purchase mid-April.
Here's the imdb listing: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4344782/
Looks like there's some ways to stream it now (I'll guess more will be added in time), listed on these sites.
Lmd, would you be so kind to add this to the Black History that doesn't make it into the History Books link pinned to the top of this forum? This is a remarkable contribution. Thanks!
my friend!
