Generally considered the first masterpiece of African cinema, Mandabi tells the story of Ibrahima Dieng, an elderly gentleman living contentedly on the outskirts of Dakar, unemployed but well-served by his two wives. His life is turned upside down when he receives a money order from his nephew Abdou, who is working in Paris. Suddenly he is perceived to be the wealthiest man in the neighborhood, and everyone is his friend. No one seems to care that most of the money is not his--he is supposed to give some to his elder sister and save the rest for Abdou.

And there is another catch: before he can spend the money, he must cash the money order, and that means going up against an incredibly daunting bureaucracy. He must leave his traditional little world, in which he can act like a little tyrant with his wives (though in fact they clearly run the family), and enter the realm of contemporary Neo-Colonialism, to deal with bureaucrats who insist upon speaking the language of authority (French), and upon thieves and scoundrels intent upon separating him from his money.

Illiterate, unable to understand a word of French, Dieng is like a foreigner in his own country--weak, vulnerable, a victim. Even though he is not a particularly pleasant individual, we find our sympathies shifting towards him as the film progresses and he sinks further and further into debt and dependency. The money order, which should have been a godsend for Dieng and his family, ironically turns out to be a curse.

Mandabi thus gives us a first taste of Sembene's unique blend of humor, irony, and humanistic social critique. We can also see his skill as a director through his simple but effective use of the camera and of editing to move his story and move his audience.

***

Ousmane Sembene 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 sees himself as a contemporary embodiment of the traditional African griot, a 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 Sembene 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.

Sembene returned to Senegal in 1963, formed a production company, and made a 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 used 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. Ceddo (1980), is set in the 17th Century and deals with the violent conquest of Senegal by Islam and the beginning of the slave trade; it features a powerful female leader, and is perhaps his most daring film stylistically. 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.

All of Sembene's films have been made under the severe constraints that are typical of Third World Filmmaking, with low budgets and erratic distribution, particularly in their own countries. He generally uses non-professional actors in his films, and he likes to give them a lot of latitude to improvise, particularly the women. He selects them because they feel right for the part, because they represent a type that he wants in his story, then he lets them bring bits of their own reality into the film.

He chooses, however, not to make documentaries. He feels 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 are frequently adapted from his own novels, tend 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, Sembene's story will arise. The creative catalysts for Sembene are the fictional characters who come 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" (1975 interview).

His films usually do contain elements of social critique. They are almost always anti-colonial, though for Sembene "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. Yet he tries hard to keep his films from being didactic or propagandistic. He made the following point in an interview with Francoise 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 difficut to overestimate Ousmane Sembene's contributions to African Cinema. A profoundly decent, funny, generous man, he has been an inspiration to filmmakers at home, and a compelling ambassador for African Cinema abroad. But he is no idle elder statesman: Guelwaar, which we saw in last year's Festival, made when Sembene was nearly 70, reminds us of the vitality and continuity of his creative, moral, and political vision.

Notes by Michael Dembrow