| Chapter 1: | Introduction |
|
|
film director, producer, and writer. He began his writing career while working in Marseilles, France, publishing poems in a left-wing literary review, Cahiers du sud and in the review Action Poétique. His first significant work was a novel The Black Dockworker, published in 1956. Thereafter, he went on to publish nine other novels and several short stories, the last of which, Guelwaar (1996), was inspired by his 1992 film of the same title.
At the age of forty, Sembène became interested in making films. He left France in 1960, moved back to Senegal, and then went to the Soviet Union to be trained as a film director. His first commercialized film, Borom Sarret (1963), followed by Niaye (1964) were both highly influenced by his Moscow training. His third film, La Noire de... (Black Girl) (1966), considered by many to be the first post-colonial feature-length Black African film, became a milestone in his career, winning him the prestigious Jean-Vigo prize and the title of pioneer of postcolonial Black African film. In all, Sembène produced eleven commercialized films over a forty-year period, with Moolaade (2004) being the last. Sembène passed away on June 9, 2007, at the age of eighty-four. Even while alive, Sembène was considered a legend. The impact of his works lives on.
This volume is an effort to share the richness of these years of interpretations, analyses, and critiques with a wider audience.3 It is concerned with analyzing the artistry of the films as well as each film’s signifying elements and all that generates and conveys meaning. Sembène was a postcolonial writer and filmmaker, known for using his talent and creative works to submit his people to a critical self-reflection. This inward gaze he, along with many of his intellectual contemporaries, deemed as a necessary step toward liberation, from colonialism and its offshoots on one hand and from traditional practices that undermine individual freedoms on the other. Sembène tended to view African independence in terms of a necessary understanding and acceptance of indigenous cultural values, beginning with the recognition of the importance of native languages.