Ousmane Sembene: The Work of an African Film Maker

Ousmane Sembene is an influential Senegalese film director most commonly referred to as the father of African cinema. He was born in 1923 in Casamance, Senegal in a family of poor fisherman. Sembene did not have much French schooling as a child because his family was in the lower class. As a colonial French citizen in 1944, he was drafted into the French colonial army, the Tirailleurs Sénégalais, to fight for liberation of the French from German occupation. Following his term of service he became a union organizer and joined the French Communist Party in Marseilles. Sembene participated in the protest movements organized by the FCP against the colonial war in Indochina (1953) and the Korean War (1950-1953). He also supported the Algerian National Liberation Front during its struggle for independence from France (1954-1962). He often yearned for the society of universal brotherhood and justice mirrored by the communist ideologies, which he meticulously studied. 

During his stay in Marseilles from 1950-1960 he learned and mastered the French language. He also began to write and publish novels. Several titles are: O, Country, My Beautiful People, (1957), God's Bits of Wood, (1960), The Money Order, (1965), Harmattan, (1965), and The Curse, (1973). Upon returning to Senegal in the early 1960s he felt alienated by the paucity of revolutionary artists and writers from Africa. He noticed most people in the West African sub-region were illiterate in French and could not understand the messages embedded in his writings. Thus Sembene decided to attend film school in the Soviet Union. He spent a year at the Gorki Studios in Moscow studying cinematography under the auspices of director, Marc Donskoï. Since his return to Senegal in the early 1960s he has made L'Empire Sonhrai (1963), Borom Sarret (1963), Niaye (1964), La Noire de…(1967), Mandabi (1968), Taaw (1970), Emitai (1971), Xala (1974), Ceddo (1977), Camp de Thiaroye (1988), Guelwaar (1992), L'heroisme au quotidien (1999), Faat Kine (2000), and Moolaade (2004).