| Chapter 1: | Introduction |
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chapter provides an overview of a specific director’s production and background education to make sense of the films. Chapter 2, which is devoted to Sembène, examines his films’ social, political, and cultural context as well as the themes of resistance and representation.
In his 2010 publication, African Cinema: New Forms of Aesthetics and Politics, Manthia Diawara surveyed African film history beginning with the pioneering role of Sembène. In the volume, Diawara focused on the new developments of African cinema and underscored the tendency of the new generation of filmmakers to break away from nationalism and social realism to explore new forms of aesthetics. Although he seemed favorable to the need for departure from the old ways, he concluded his section on Sembène by appealing to the younger generation of African filmmakers not to ignore Sembène’s legacy.
The few notable book-length works that focus exclusively on Sembène or on his cinema and literature include early volumes by Paulin Soumanou Vieyra (1972), Carrie Dailey Moore (her 1973 PhD dissertation), Françoise Pfaff (1984), Daniel Serceau (1985), Samba Gadjigo et al. (1993), Sheila Petty (1996), Anthère Nzabatsinda (1996), David Murphy (2001), Samba Gadjigo (2007), Annett Busch and Max Annas (2008), Thierno Dia and Olivier Barlet (2009), and Samba Gadjigo and Sada Niang (2010). I address each one in the pages that follow, though not necessarily in this order.
An increasing number of edited volumes on Sembène’s oeuvre have come out in recent years, and a few are currently under way. Volumes with multiple authors, though generally brilliant and valuable pieces of critical work that afford a multifaceted approach and perspective on the works of one particular author and writer (Sembène in this case), have the disadvantage of missing the organizational and theoretical cohesiveness of a full-length book conceived and written by one author. Although all the chapters may be well-documented critical examinations of different aspects of Sembène’s films or writings, the authors have different mindsets, different backgrounds and educations, and most