Directed by Ousmane Sembène • 1977 • Senegal
Starring Mamadou Dioumé, Ousmane Sembène, Tabata Ndiaye
In precolonial Senegal, members of the Ceddo (or “outsiders”) kidnap Princess Dior Yacine (Tabata Ndiaye) after her father, the king, pledges loyalty to an ascendant Islamic faction that plans to convert the entire clan to its faith. Attempts to recapture her fail, provoking further division and eventual war between the animistic Ceddo and the fundamentalist Muslims, with Christian missionaries and slave traders from Europe also playing a role in the conflict. Banned in Senegal upon its release, CEDDO is an ambitious, multilayered epic that explores the combustible tensions among ancient tradition, religious colonization, political expediency, and individual freedom.
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Guelwaar
Directed by Ousmane Sembène • 1992 • France, Germany, Senegal, United States
Starring Thierno Ndiaye Doss, Mame Ndoumbé Diop, Myriam Niang“Guelwaar” is the nickname of Pierre Henri Thioune (Thierno Ndiaye), a political radical and agitator whose criticism of Senegal’s reliance on foreign aid ru...
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Borom sarret
Directed by Ousmane Sembène • 1963 • Senegal
Starring Ly Abdoulay, AlbourahThis groundbreaking short film, which won first prize at the 1963 Touris Film Festival in France, was the directorial debut of Ousmane Sembène.
Restored in 2013 by the Cineteca di Bologna/L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory...
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Niaye
Directed by Ousmane Sembène • 1964 • Senegal
Starring Sow, Astou Ndiaye, Mame DiaIn this early short film, adapted from his own novella “White Genesis,” Ousmane Sembène offers a portrait of a Senegalese village in decline, where the chief has impregnated his own daughter, a soldier has come bac...
