Sembène Ousmane: a tribute to the French Cinémathèque for the centenary of his birth
Senegalese director-storyteller-writer Ousmane Sembène, in his office in Dakar, February 18, 2005. AFP / SEYLLOU
Text by: RFI Follow
2 mins
Sembène Ousmane would have been a hundred years old on January 1, 2023. This mythical figure of African cinema, also a novelist and short story writer, was born in Ziguinchor and had discovered the power of the 7th art, which he will put at the service of his political commitment, at the service of justice and representation of Africa.
The French Cinematheque in Paris will pay tribute to him with a retrospective from next Thursday.
Publicity
Read more
Sembène Ousmane, who died on June 9, 2007, has become a major figure in contemporary Africa, whose work is taught in American universities.
“
I grew up in a small village in Senegal, without radio, without television.
All I had were my grandmother's tales…
”, he said.
This is how Sembène Ousmane became a storyteller himself, determined to
represent Africa
at a time when images of the continent came from the white colonizer.
"La Table des Anciens" at the Hôtel de l'Indépendance in Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso), with Med Hondo, Timité Bassori, Lionel N'Gakané, Tahar Cheriaa and Ousmane Sembène, Ahmed Attia (from left to right) Collection Private Mohamed Challouf/OIF
►
To read also
: "Sembène has empowered its readers", according to Elgas
An undisciplined student, in turn a mason, a docker at the port of Marseille, a Senegalese skirmisher, an activist of the French Communist Party, Sembène Ousmane fights for the independence of his country.
He does it camera in hand, convinced that cinema is an evening school.
In 1963, his film
Borom Sarret
, the journey in 18 minutes of a poor man among the poor in Dakar, was the first film shot in Africa by an African.
Self-taught filmmaker, also a writer, Sembène Ousmane paves the way for African directors.
In all, he leaves nine feature films, a work devoted to the history of Africa, from slavery to the Islamic conquest, from French colonization to the new African bourgeoisies.
►
To listen also
: "Sembène, the dean", it is in All the cinemas of the world
The eldest of the elders will have remained a rebel all his life, denouncing the forced conversions to Islam in
Ceddo
, a film long banned in Senegal, the massacre of Senegalese skirmishers by the French in
Camp de Thiaroye
or the excision of girls in
Moolaadé
, his last film in 2004.
► The program of the
retrospective at the Cinémathèque
, from January 5 to 15
Newsletter
Receive all the international news directly in your mailbox
I subscribe
Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application
Africa
Movie theater
Culture
Senegal