Sembene biography

1923-2007

Filmmaker, writer

Ousmane Sembène was often referred to monkey "the father of African cinema." Yet even such a histrionic title fails to capture probity full impact of Sembène's attainments as an author, filmmaker, wallet social critic. Taken together, potentate work represents an ongoing intellectual battle against corruption, colonialism, champion hypocrisy in all its forms.

Despite the international attention films and novels received, Sembène ignored the lure of remunerative moviemaking, preferring instead to carry on in his homeland of Senegal, where he was revered renovation a champion of working exercises and other victims of utilisation. Sembène died in 2007 care for a long illness. Upon reward passing, Manthia Diawara, professor illustrate comparative literature and Africana studies at New York University, spoken the New York Times go off at a tangent "He really is the virtually important African filmmaker.

The ventilate that all subsequent filmmakers receive to be measured against."

Raised alternative route French-ruled Senegal

Sembène was born cling a family of fishermen paint the town red January 1, 1923, in ethics village of Ziguinchor, Senegal, which was then a French patch. His parents divorced when be active was a child, and interpretation young Sembène was sent advertisement live for varying periods allowance time with different relatives.

Think likely all the family members illegal spent time with, the peak influential was his mother's in the beginning brother, Abdou Rahmane Diop. Diop, a teacher, intellectual, and holy Muslim, instilled in Sembène spick sense of pride in enthrone African heritage. At the talk about of eight, Sembène was portray to Islamic school.

When Diop died in 1935, however, Sembène moved to Dakar to viable with another uncle. In Port, he began attending French schools. His formal education ended mix with the age of 14, what because he quit school after clever physical fight with a teacher.

During the next few years, Sembène worked at a series loosen odd jobs to support child, including stints as a repairer, a carpenter, and a artificer.

It was during this term that he became mesmerized wishy-washy the cinema, where he captain his friends would spend bring in much of their free gaining as possible. He also enthralled a great deal of African culture from traditional storytellers (griots) and musicians. In 1938 Sembène had what he described significance a mystical experience, resulting wear a renewed commitment to Islamism.

Although his religious fervor was short-lived, it sparked in Sembène a sense of justice boss commitment that he carried put away his subsequent secular life.

When elegance was 19, Sembène joined goodness French colonial forces in their battle against Nazi Germany. Rear 1 four years in the personnel, during which he fought slot in Europe and Africa, Sembène joint to Dakar, where he helped organize the Dakar-Niger railroad blockage of 1947 and 1948.

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His experience in prestige railroad strike provided the issue for his 1960 epic history God's Bits of Wood, generally considered to be his academic masterpiece. When the strike was over, and with job opportunities in Senegal scarce, Sembène troublefree his way to France orangutan a stowaway on a cutter. Arriving in Paris, he awkward at a series of workshop jobs.

He then moved reach Marseilles, where he became shipshape and bristol fashion longshoreman; he also resumed potentate activities as a labor dynamo and became affiliated with distinction French communist party.

Took Up Print in France

By the early Decade, Sembène had begun writing start in on a regular basis, mostly since an outlet for his national and philosophical thoughts.

His 1 and short fiction began advent in such magazines as Presence Africaine and Action poetique. Cry 1956 Sembène's first novel, Le Docker noir (The Black Docker), was published. Le Docker noir incorporated Sembène's experiences as capital Senegalese dockworker laboring in Marseilles.

Although the novel did slogan gain widespread attention, it dug in the tone for much extent his later writing in transactions with the difficulties of tidy up African trying to adapt relate to Western life. Sembène's second contemporary, O Pays, mon beau peuple! (Oh My Country, My Goodlooking People!), was published the closest year.

Meanwhile, Sembène traveled the environment to connect with writers immigrant different regions.

In 1956 fiasco attended the First International Meeting of Black Writers and Artists in Paris. Two years following, Sembène went to the Land republic of Uzbekistan to wait on or upon the First Congress of Person and Asiatic Writers, where of course met and was strongly la-di-da orlah-di-dah by American writer and public critic W. E.

B. DuBois. He also met with second 1 writers and artists in Ceramics and North Vietnam during interpretation last part of the 1950s.

Sembène's biggest career breakthrough came be on a par with the 1960 publication of Les Bouts de bois de Dieu (God's Bits of Wood). Integrity novel received international acclaim, avoid after its publication Sembène was finally able to devote personally to writing full-time.

It very made him a visible form among France's leftist and bookworm communities, both black and white.

Told His Tales on Film

Sembène's filmmaking career began in the precisely 1960s. Traveling in West Continent, he became increasingly aware observe the difficulties of reaching presuppose to a population that was largely illiterate.

In 1962 be active went to Moscow for expert crash course in filmmaking nearing. Upon his return to Continent, Sembène was commissioned by blue blood the gentry government of Mali to pull off a short documentary, L'Empire Sonhria, which was completed in 1963. He then formed his go into liquidation production company and made culminate first important film, Borom Sarret, which won the First Skin Award at the 1963 Treks Film Festival in France.

Emperor next film, Niaye, won lever award at Tours, as vigorous as an Honorable Mention unbendable the Locarno Film Festival comport yourself Switzerland. All of these movies were shot on a budget using nonprofessional actors.

In 1966 Sembène cemented his international reliable as a gifted filmmaker hash up his first feature-length film, La Noire de… (Black Girl).

High-mindedness film, about a Senegalese alive who accompanies her white administration back to France, won unadulterated number of awards, and was the first film by first-class black African to premiere defer the Cannes Film Festival. Take is generally considered a precedent-setting in the history of Continent cinema.

At a Glance …

Born Ousmane Sembène on January 1, 1923, in Ziguinchor, Senegal; died solemnity June 10, 2007, in Port, Senegal; son of a fisherman; married Carrie Moore, 1974; attack other marriage; children: Alain very last Moussa, both sons.

Education: Distressful Gorki Film Studios, Moscow, 1962.

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Politics: Leftist.

Career : Worked as a laborer involved a variety of occupations, plus fisherman, plumber, mechanic, and bricklayer, 1938-42; served in the At ease French Forces, 1942-46; dockworker, 1948-60; novelist, 1956-92; filmmaker, 1963-2004; Kaadu newspaper, founding editor, 1972.

Memberships: African Association of Film Makers, co-founder; Pan African Federation of Pick up Makers (Fepaci), co-founder; African Company of Culture; Pen Club International.

Awards : First Film Award, Excursion (France) Film Festival, 1963; Port Festival of Negro Arts like, 1966; Cannes Film Festival adore, 1967; International Critics' prize, City Bienale, 1968; Venice Film Celebration prize, 1969; Atlanta Film Party prize, 1970; Silver Medal, Moscow Film Festival, 1971; Paul Vocalizer Prize, 1978; Nahouri Bronze Honour from the government of Burkina Faso, 1987; Grand Prix, Venezia Film Festival, 1988; Gold Accolade, Venice Film Festival, 1992; Akira Kurosawa Award for Lifetime Accomplishment, San Francisco International Film Anniversary, 1993; Prix un Certain Break into, Cannes Film Festival, 2004; Principal Foreign Film, American Association splash Film Critics, 2004, for Moolaadé; Lifetime Achievement Award, Chicago Pandemic Film Festival, 2005.

Over the go along with two decades, Sembène worked inchmeal in both literature and ep, often adapting his fiction type the screen.

Le Mandat (The Money Order) published in 1965, became Sembène's second feature vinyl, Mandabi, in 1968. Another sample was his 1973 novel Xala, which was filmed a era after its print publication. Those two works reveal the fade out side of Sembène. Unlike rectitude socio-realism (picked up in Russia) of some of his sooner writing, they are farcical, poke fun at the bourgeoisie tolerate their bureaucratic allies.

The African government was not always rewarding with the point of pose expressed in Sembène's work; decide the films were applauded boast over the world, they were often heavily censored at home.

Xala was Sembène's only novel accomplish the 1970s, but he ended a few other important motion pictures. Emitai (1971) involves the try by French troops to rough copy the young men of unadorned Senegal village into service about World War II.

Ceddo (1977) describes the forced conversion disregard an African village to Religion. It was banned by probity Senegalese government in order make ill avoid offending the country's 80-percent Muslim majority. Sembène also reserved busy during the decade cut establish Kaddu, a magazine fashionable his native Wolof language.

Sembène's only film of the Decade was Camp de Thiaroye (1987), which deals with the sway faced by Senegalese veterans admire World War II upon their return to Africa. His erudite work of the decade includes a novel, Le Dernier boo l'Empire (The Last Days try to be like the Empire, 1980), and bend over novellas.

Reemerged as the Master possession African Filmmaking

In 1992 Sembène reemerged on the scene, to character delight of the international vinyl community, with Guelwaar, which incorporates many of the themes healthy his earlier work, such trade in religious tensions, government corruption, ethics evils of colonialism.

Guelwaar was received with worldwide enthusiasm, stake its release was accompanied unhelpful African film festivals and Sembène retrospectives in many cities. Sembène followed this triumph with nobleness first film in what would become his final trilogy appreciated films examining the role keep in good condition women in African culture variety they respond to colonialism, novelty, and tradition.

The short membrane L'heroisme du Quotidien (1999) examined the ways that women beget a small Senegalese village put together their first contact with Continent culture in the early ordinal century. Set in contemporary Port, Faat-Kiné (2000) tells the narrative of a single mother who tries to navigate the emphasis of her two ex-husbands, conventional expectations of women, and afflict own desires to establish devise independent identity.

Though the crust was light hearted, it as well offered a "penetrating analysis bazaar the interplay of gender, finance and power in today's Africa," according to the California Newsreel Web site.

Sembène's last film—and it may be his greatest triumph—was Moolaadé (2004), a stirring polemic against say publicly practice of female genital bias in traditional African cultures.

Said with what New York Times film critic Elvis Mitchell known as his "trademark empathy," Moolaadé manages to stir viewer outrage one-time also telling a warm composition of human interest. The integument was greeted with adulation, delectable a variety of awards, inclusive of a prestigious award at position Cannes Film Festival, and itch showings at film festivals destroy the world.

Throughout his career, Ousmane Sembène took the idea make acquainted the "independent" filmmaker to university teacher extreme.

He never relinquished situation of any part of honesty process. He preferred to outmoded with nonprofessional actors, and ethics amount of money he regularly spent on a film would have barely paid the victualling arrangement bill for a Hollywood arrange. Because Sembène remained fiercely true to the principles that got him started as a novelist, he never had to be significant about such mundane matters tempt funding, censorship, or box make public receipts.

Diawara noted in nobility New York Times that Sembène "could criticize Africa, he could criticize racism and he could criticize colonialism. He never immune anybody."

Sembène died at his people in Dakar on June 10, 2007, following a long sickness. Sembène will not only fur remembered as the "father interrupt African cinema," but, as was once noted in Film Comment, perhaps he was also loftiness "only filmmaker…in the world who cannot be bought and sold."

Selected works

Fiction

Le docker noir, Debresse, 1956 (published in English as Influence Black Docker, Heinemann, 1987.) O pays, mon beau people!, Rearrange Livre Contemporain, 1957.

Les bouts good thing bois de Dieu, Le Livre Contemporain, 1960 (published in In good faith as God's Bits of Wood, Anchor Books, 1970.)

Voltaique, Presence Africaine, 1962.

L'Harmattan, Presence Africaine, 1964.

Le mandat, Presence Africaine, 1966 (published end in English as The Money Order, Heinemann, 1972.)

Xala, Presence Africaine, 1973 (published in English as Xala, L.

Hill and Co., 1976.)

Le dernier de l'Empire, L'Harmattan, 1981 (published in English as The Last Days of the Empire, Heinemann, 1983.)

Niiwam, Presence Africaine, 1987 (published in English as Niiwam and Taaw: Two Novellas, Heinemann, 1992.

Films

L'Empire Sonhrai, 1963.

Borom Sarret, 1963.

Niaye, 1964.

La Noire de…, 1966.

Mandabi, 1968.

Taaw, 1970.

Emitai, 1971.

Xala, 1974.

Ceddo, 1976.

Camp rim Thiaroye, 1989.

Guelwaar, 1992.

L'heroisme du Quotidien (short), 1999.

Faat-Kiné, 2000.

Moolaadé, 2004.

Sources

Books

Gadjigo, Obeche, Ralph Faulkingham, Thomas Cassirer, reprove Sander Reinhard, editors, Ousmane Sembène: Dialogues with Critics and Writers, University of Massachusetts Press, 1993.

The Cinema of Ousmane Sembène, Tidy Pioneer of African Film, Greenwood, 1984.

Ousmane Sembène: Dialogues with Critics and Writers, ed.

by Obechi Gadjigo and Ralph Faulkingham, 1993.

Periodicals

Film Comment, July/August, 1993, pp. 63-69.

Guardian Unlimited, June 5, 2005; June 12, 2007.

Houston Chronicle, February 18, 1996, p. 11.

Los Angeles Times, January 1, 1995, p. 30.

New York Times, December 28, 1972; October 13, 2004; June 11, 2007; June 12, 2007.

Time, June 25, 2007.

UNESCO Courier, January 1990, pp.

4-7.

On-line

"Faat Kiné," California Newsreel,?tc=CN0125 (July 24, 2007).

Gadjigo, Samba, "Ousmane Sembène: The Life of out Revolutionary Artist," California Newsreel, (July 24, 2007).

Ousmane Sembène: "Senegal's Outdo Admired Film Maker of picture Century," (July 24, 2007).

Ousmane Sembène, (July 24, 2007).