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

cinéma pour voir mes films. Quand je les vois, je suis content pour l’Afrique.¹⁵

(I feel that I am doing something useful, even if only for the two hours during which people lock themselves in a theatre to watch my films. Seeing them [the people] makes me happy for Africa.)

Thus, Sembène felt a sense of accomplishment when people watched his films because the movies offered a forum for meaningful exchange between him and his audiences. His films gave him the opportunity to talk directly to his people, an opportunity his writings failed to provide on a larger scale because much of the population in Senegal remained illiterate in French. Because his films interpret and make provocative commentaries on the world of the audience, he was sure to capture viewers’ attention and goad them, if not into action at least into critical self-reflection. Sembène manipulated his audience with the power of his film language. He did not seek to please his African audiences, nor did he try to discourage them. Rather he endeavored to surprise or to shock them and violate their expectations by projecting onto the screen a distorted—yet not false—image of themselves. As a result, he left them struggling with the feeling that their privacy, their most intimate thoughts and relations, was exposed by the intrusion of the camera into the unfathomed and unexpressed depths of their psyches.

Sembène’s determination to encourage meaningful exchanges among his audiences found an echo in the aesthetic guidelines of FEPACI. This organization believed cinema was the most effective instrument of mutual communication among African peoples. Its founders saw the potential for film to advance the political and economic integration of the continent. After its creation, FEPACI adopted a charter that outlined the ethics of African filmmakers. Sembène’s vision of cinema fully met the goals stated by FEPACI. He considered himself and his peer African filmmakers to be educators: