The Films of Ousmane Sembène: Discourse, Politics, and Culture By ...

In his Modernity and African Cinema: A Study in Colonialist Discourse, Postcoloniality, and Modern African Identity (2004), Femi Okiremuete Shaka recognized Sembène’s anticolonialist discourse in his films and analyzed Manda bi, Borom Sarret, and Camp de Thiaroye as Sembène’s unromanticized reading of modernity in Africa. The issues discussed in the volume include colonialist representations of Africa in film and African theories of cinema. Shaka reproached African film critics for not providing a framework of analysis for African films and suggested such concepts as Africanness, modernity, and subjectivity as potential frameworks.

Roy Armes, who traced the history of filmmaking in Africa since its beginnings in African Filmmaking: North and South of the Sahara (2006), recognized the pioneering role of Sembène in the birth and evolution of filmmaking in Africa south of the Sahara. His book highlights the historic evolution of the themes and aesthetics of African cinema and stresses the stylistic break of the younger generation of African filmmakers from the didactic films of the older generation.

Kenneth Harrow’s Postcolonial African Cinema: From Political Engagement to Postmodernism (2007) is a call to rethink African film criticism. In this volume, Harrow invited African film scholars to move away from the old models of criticism that have remained unchanged since the early days of cinema practice in Africa and to explore new avenues, a new paradigm of criticism of African films. He offered a range of theoretical readings of African film aesthetics, including Sembène’s, and suggested new insights for theoretical explorations of film praxis and cultural production in general in Africa. Sembène’s films are referenced throughout the book, but Xala and, to a lesser extent, Faat Kiné receive the most critical attention.

Although six of the ten filmmakers featured are from Francophone West Africa, Postcolonial African Cinema: Ten Directors (2007) by David Murphy and Patrick Williams discusses the many issues facing filmmakers in Africa, including North Africa and Lusophone Africa. Each