Dir: Samba Gadjigo | Doc | 89min | Senegal
Samba Gadjigo captures the life of Sénégal director, writer and freedom fighter Ousmane Sembène (1923-2007) in this engagingly hagiographic documentary that offers up fascinating archive footage, photos and interviews to paint his story with heartfelt vigour, without examining a ruthless ego necessary for political success.
Sembène’s modest start in life took him as a teenager to portside Dakar where he worked as a docker and – because Black Africans were banned from filmmaking in the French colonies – eventually made his journey to France and to international recognition as a film director with his 1966 feature Black Girl, a cinema vérité portrait of a Senegalese maid working for a wealthy family in France. But most importantly Sembène was to raise the profile of the terrible process of FGM with his colourful drama Moolaadé in 2004 that was to be the glittering jewel in the crown of his 40-year career. MT
SCREENING AS PART OF THE REBEL WITH A CAMERA SEASON NATIONWIDE