A portrait of an East African man with glasses, reflecting on art and culture in the region.
Often touted as the ‘father of African cinema,’ Ousmane Sembène would have turned 100 on January 1st, 2023. A prolific novelist and filmmaker, his long career can be divided into distinct periods, and he proved himself to be a master of self-reinvention. After studying cinema in Moscow, Sembène directed his first short film, Borom Sarret (The Wagoner), in 1962. A day in the life of a lowly cart driver, the film provides a stinging critique of the failures of independence in Senegal, cast as the transfer of power from one ruling elite to another. After a decade spent largely in the creative wilderness, Sembène experienced a late flowering from the end of the 1980s onwards. This saw him reach a new generation of audiences. His later works were less ambitious aesthetically but no less powerful. His masterpiece Moolaadé (2004) was a scathing denunciation of female genital mutilation in rural West Africa.
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