OUSMANE SEMBENE

Ousmane Sembène has long been considered the father of Black African film, both for his filmmaking achievements and for his efforts to promote the creation of a vital, authentic African cinema. He saw himself as a contemporary embodiment of the traditional African griot, the storyteller and chronicler who both preserves and reinterprets the social and cultural heritage of his community.

He was born in 1923 in a coastal fishing village near Dakar. He worked a variety of jobs as a young man (36 different kinds of work, according to him) before being conscripted into the French army at the end of World War II. He then moved to Marseille, where he worked as a stevedore for ten years. He became active in unionism and left-wing politics, and he began to read voraciously. While in France he became acquainted with some of the writers of the African-American Diaspora (including Richard Wright), and he began to write stories and novels. Le Docker Noir (The Black Stevedore) was published in 1957, and Les Bout de Bois de Dieu (God's Bits of Wood) appeared in 1960; both received substantial critical acclaim. Both were written initially in French, to assure publication and to ease distribution throughout Francophone Africa. By the mid-Sixties Sembène had decided that his novels should first appear in his native Wolof, with eventual translation into French, a practice that he still follows in his writings and his films.

In 1962 he was offered a scholarship to the Gorky Film Institute in Moscow, where he was able to study filmmaking under noted director Marc Donskoy. He had always been interested in movies both as entertainment and as art, but had become increasingly drawn to the idea of using film to communicate his vision and his ideas to a polyglot and frequently illiterate population. The rigorous film program at the Gorky Film Institute gave him the ability to translate that vision onto film. The rest of his career would be spent struggling to find the resources to do so.

Sembène returned to Senegal in 1963, formed a production company, and made the short film Borom Sarett, which won a prize at Tours Film Festival. La Noire de . . . (Black Girl), made in 1966, won the Jean Vigo Prize at the Carthage Film Festival. Manda bi (1968), his first feature film, won the Special Festival Prize at the Venice Film Festival. It tells the story of a village man, accustomed to lording it over his wives, who finds himself helpless against the new political system when he tries to cash a money order. Tauw (1970), a short film made for the United Nations, focuses on two young brothers living in poverty in contemporary Dakar. Emitai (1972) revolves around the conscription of Black Africans into the French Army during World War II. Xala (The Curse of Impotence), made in 1975, is a biting satire about the discreet charm of the Neo-Colonialist Senegalese bourgeoisie. Then came Ceddo, completed in 1976 but not shown in Senegal for six years (supposedly because he had misspelled the word “ceddo” but obviously there were other, more political, reasons). Le Camp de Thiaroye/The Camp at Thiaroye (1987) focuses on the fate of Senegalese soldiers who were conscripted into the French Army during World War II, taken prisoner by Germans, then returned to a Senegal that was no less a prison camp for them. It won First Prize at the 1988 Venice Film Festival. In Guelwaar (1992) Sembène returns to the issue of religious animosity in a subtle, life-affirming film about what happens when the body of Pierre Henri Thioune, alias “Guelwaar,” a popular member of the anti-establishment resistance and a Catholic, is accidentally given to Muslims, who give it a Muslim burial. It opened the 1993 FESPACO festival to great acclaim and honors.

Faat Kiné (2000), for the first time since Black Girl, has a woman as his main character. Here he deals directly with the intersection of gender politics and neo-colonial politics: Faat Kiné's treatment by men who only want to take advantage of her becomes a mirror for the inadequacies of the patriarchal society. Faat Kine's steadfastness and ultimate triumph reflect Sembène's enduring optimism and his belief that Africans must become both self-sufficient and socially responsible. New York Times film critic Elvis Mitchell named Faat Kiné one of the ten best films to play in the U.S. in 2001.

Moolaadé, made when the director was 81, in a sense continues the story of Faat Kiné, though in a very different setting (a very rural and traditional Bukina Faso village). He conceived it as the second part of a triptych of films begun with Faat Kiné, films celebrating “everyday heroes.” (His projected next film is again set in the city and has been tentatively assigned the title of La Confrerie des Rats/The Brotherhood of Rats.) Moolaadé was the recipient of a number of international awards and was placed on a number of “Best Films” lists for 2004.

All of Sembène's films were made under the severe constraints that are typical of filmmaking in the developing world, with low budgets and erratic distribution, particularly in their own countries. He generally used non-professional actors in his films, and he liked to give them a lot of latitude to improvise, particularly the women. He selected them because they felt right for the part, because they represented a type that he wanted in his story, then he let them bring bits of their own reality into the film.

After his first short film, a documentary titled L’Empire Sonhrai, he chose not to make documentaries. He felt that fictional stories are a better vehicle to engage the attention of audiences, and to get them to think about moral and social issues that they would otherwise never consider. His films, which were frequently adapted from his own novels, tended to be fictional treatments of authentic incidents, sometimes historical, sometimes taken from the "strange facts" sections of newspapers. He stated in an interview with me in 1975, "I have many ideas in my head, because I see things around me, and every event deserves to be recounted, it seems. But aside from that, it's usually a little bit of news, a speck of an event."

From that speck, be it historical, contemporary, or purely fictional, Sembène's story would arise. The creative catalysts for Sembène were the fictional characters who came to live in his head: "There are times when there are people obsessing me, figures whom I didn't expect to find. You see, these people are pressing themselves on me. . . . jostling one another in front of me" (Interview with Dembrow and Tröller). This is true whether his characters were taken from contemporary life or blended from historical personages.

His films almost always contain elements of social critique, of resistance to colonialism or neo-colonialism. For Sembène, "Colonialism" can come in many forms, and the oppressors may be white, black, or brown: French Colonialism in Emitai and Le Camp de Thiaroye; Neo-Colonialism in Black Girl, Xala and Manda Bi; or Islamic Colonialism in Ceddo. He tended to make women the locus of resistance in his works as well as the often unacknowledged pillars of community. He always tried hard, however, to keep his films from being overly didactic or propagandistic. He made the following point in an interview with Françoise Pfaff in 1978: "I am in favor of a given ideology but I am against billboard cinema. I am in for films that make us think, discuss and progress. I like for people to think about what I am telling them through my films. They may accept or reject it, but the important thing is to bring about new avenues of thought."

It would be difficult to overestimate Ousmane Sembène’s contributions to African Cinema. A profoundly decent, funny, generous man, he was a inspiration to filmmakers at home, and a compelling ambassador for African Cinema abroad. But he was no idle elder statesman: Moolaadé, which was made when Sembène was over 80, reminded us of the vitality and continuity of his creative, moral, and political vision.

As fate would dictate, Moolaadé was to be the director’s final film, as the great director died on June 9, 2007. Before his health went into decline, he was, as usual, hard at work on his next film.

SEMBENE FILMOGRAPHY

L'Empire Sonhrai (1963) (documentary)

Borom Sarret (1963)

Niaye (1964)

Black Girl/La Noire de... (1966)

Mandabi/The Money Order (1968)

Tauw (1970)

Emitai (1971)

Xala (1974)

Ceddo (1976)

Camp de Thiaroye (1988)

Guelwaar (1992)

Faat Kiné (2000)

Moolaadé (2004)

NOVELS AND STORIES BY SEMBENE IN ENGLISH

God's Bits of Wood (1960, 1970)

Black Docker (1956, 1987)

Tribal Scars, and Other Stories (1974) (including "Black Girl" and "Voltaique")

The Money Order (Mandabi), with White Genesis (1966, 1972)

Xala (1973, 1976)

Last of the Empire: A Senegalese Novel (1981, 1984)

Niiwam and Taaw: Two Novellas (1987, 1992).

--Notes by Michael Dembrow

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