The Films of Ousmane Sembène at the Pacific Film Archive

SAT OCT 7 2006
6:30 Black Girl
Her postcolonial hopes dashed, a young Senegalese woman is led to a dramatic act of resistance in Black Girl, considered Africa’s first dramatic feature. With Borom Sarret, a poignant, politically charged essay on a cart driver in the poorer sections of Dakar.

SAT OCT 7 2006
8:15 Mandabi
A comic fable about a middle-aged man whose life changes when he receives a money order from Paris. “Sembène’s approach is spare, laconic, slightly ironic, and never patronizing.”—N.Y. Times

FRI OCT 13 2006
8:15 Ceddo
In the guise of a political thriller set in the 18th century, Ceddo takes on taboo subjects—Islamic influence in Senegal, African support for the slave trade, the status of women—becoming a reflection on all forms of colonialism in Africa. “Like a contemporary Euripides, Sembène has created a form of public, primal art.”—Village Voice

SAT OCT 14 2006
8:15 Xala
An aging, affluent businessman about to marry his third wife is struck with the curse of xala (impotence) in “one of the most sophisticated works of the African cinema-at once both comic satire and a deadly accurate polemic against the black bourgeoisie of Dakar.”—Albert Johnson

FRI OCT 20 2006
6:30 Emitaï
Named for the God of Thunder, a story about the awakening of national consciousness, in the clash between French colonists and the Diola tribe in the closing days of WWII. “Told with great sensitivity and restraint.”—S.F. Chronicle

FRI OCT 20 2006
8:35 Moolaadé
Universally acclaimed, Sembène’s recent film portrays a mother’s courage in protecting the next generation of women from the terrible tradition of female genital mutilation. “A masterpiece of political filmmaking.”—N.Y. Times

SAT OCT 21 2006
6:30 Guelwaar
When the body of a murdered political activist goes missing from the morgue, his family’s attempts to retrieve it nearly escalate into a holy war. “A work of wry sophistication.”—N.Y. Times

SAT OCT 21 2006
8:45 Faat-Kine
The first in Sembène’s series on “everyday heroes” (Moolaadé is the second) centers on the quick-witted proprietress of a Dakar gas station. “A rich comedy of manners that gives a feeling of hope about Africa’s future.”—Film Comment

THU OCT 26 2006
7:30 The Camp at Thiaroye
At the close of WWII, Senegalese troops are held in a Dakar transit camp that is little better than the concentration camps some of them have just braved. A “powerful indictment of colonialism . . . shows WWII’s effects on shaping the future of Africa.”—Variety