The classic and controversial story of the "outsiders" in a West African village under the pressures of religious conversions and slavery in the 17th century.
OUSMANE SEMBÈNE was born in 1923 in the rainy Casamance region on the coast of Senegal in West Africa. The first film director from an African country to achieve international recognition, Sembène remains the major figure in the rise of an independent post-colonial cinema.
Sembène's roots were not in the educated élite. After working as a mechanic and bricklayer, he joined the Free French forces in 1942, serving in Africa and France. In 1946, he returned to Dakar, where he participated in the great railway strike of 1947. The next year he went to France, where he worked in a Citröen factory in Paris, and then, for ten years, on the dock in Marseilles. During this time Sembène became very active in trade union struggles and began an extraordinarily successful writing career. His first novel, "Le Docker Noir", was published in 1956. Since then, he has produced a number of influential literary works.
Long an avid filmgoer, Sembène became aware that to reach a mass audience of workers and Africans outside urban centers, cinema was a more effective vehicle than the written word. In 1961, he traveled to Moscow to study film. Upon his return to Senegal, Sembène made two short films, then wrote and directed his first feature, LA NOIRE DE... (BLACK GIRL, 1966). Shot in a simple, quasi-documentary style, BLACK GIRL tells the tragic story of a young Senegalese woman working as a maid for an affluent French family on the Riviera, focusing on her sense of isolation and growing despair. Her country may have been "decolonized," but she is still a non-person in the colonizers' world. Sembène's next film, MANDABI (THE MONEY ORDER, 1968), marked a sharp departure. Based on his novel of the same name and shot in color in two language versions--French and Wolof, the main dialect of Senegal--THE MONEY ORDER is a trenchant and often delightfully witty satire of the new bourgeoisie, torn between outmoded patriarchal traditions and an uncaring, rapacious and inefficient bureaucracy. EMITAI (1971) records the struggle of the Diola people of the Casamance region against the French authorities during WWII. Shot in Diola dialect and French from an original script, EMITAI offers a respectful but unromanticized depiction of an ancient tribal culture, while highlighting the role of women in the struggle against colonialist oppression. In XALA (1975), Sembène again takes on the native bourgeoisie, this time in the person of a rich, partially Westernized Muslim businessman afflicted by "xala" (impotence) on the night of his wedding to a much younger third wife. CEDDO (1977), considered by some to be Sembène's masterpiece, departs from the director's customary realist approach, in documenting the struggle over the last centuries of an unspecified African society against the incursions of Islam and European colonialism. Featuring a strong female character, Ceddo is a powerful evocation of the African experience.
Senegal banned the film over its title's spelling ("Cedo" was the romanized form favored by President Léopold Sédar Senghor). Further censorship forced Sembène to cut several scenes, but the director handed out pamphlets explaining the missing moments for Senegalese moviegoers. In some other Muslim-majority countries, the film was subjected to a complete ban, as some took offense to an unsanitized portrayal of the spread of their faith in times long past. Sembène did not intend to make an anti-Muslim statement; he refused a request by the Shah of Iran to use the film as propaganda against Muslims. In his films Sembène had always taken aim at the hypocrisies and cruelties of both colonial Europeans and Africans themselves, criticizing acts of domination regardless of the color, race or religion of the guilty party.
His final award-winning work MOOLADÉ focused on conflicts over female genital cutting, a village tradition the director could not tolerate. Sembène said: "I believe today that Africans must get beyond the question of colour, they must recognise the problems which confront the whole world, as human beings like other human beings. If others undervalue us, that has no further significance for us. Africa must get beyond deriving everything from the European view. Africa must consider itself, recognise its problems and attempt to resolve them... Often in Africa it's only the men who speak, but one forgets the role, interest of women. I think the princess is the incarnation of modern Africa. There can be no development in Africa if women are left out of the account."
Sembène died in Dakar at the age of 84, on June 9, 2007. He had been ill since December 2006, and died at his home in Dakar, Senegal where he was buried in a shroud adorned with Quranic verses.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ousmane_Semb%C3%A8ne
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Ceddo (1977)by johnnyratazana3,208 views
TODAY 96% OF SENEGALESE ARE MUSLIM
ALLAHOU AKBAR
Saheli9 2 days ago
@laloca787894:
You follow the greatest lie of all; the koran, and your arrogance and stupidity is engraved on your feeble brain, so how could you believe any truth?
There are many like my grandfather, and the numbers are increasing every day as people wake up to the demonic and violent nature of islam.
No great man ever quotes the koran or the idiot mohammed - because it is no more useful than toilet paper and mohammed is not fit to wipe my asshole.
Islam is a F-ALLAH-CY!.
TheProphetMo 8 months ago
@TheProphetMo
people have lied before on the internet, and people have done it in better deceptive images
im not a fool. noone just 'kicks' islam out of their house, can you get just a little more creative with your lies?
you cant just give random labels and say 'it is this:'
can you get anymore ignorant? I AM muslim, i follow islam, not you, what i say about is more authentic in everyway than your malign - islam is against EVERY SINGLE tag you gave it - murder, bombs...wake up man.
laloca787894 8 months ago
@laloca787894:
Until 23 years ago islam was in my family before my grandfather kicked its ass out of the house.
It was his finest moment and made him a hero.
I lived with islam and I have read the koran in two languages, I know exactly what it represents, and it is this:
Murder, bombs, beheadings, amputations, sexism, homophobia, killing unbelievers, lies and deception, and the complete disregard of all things human.
You people are the laughing stock of the world.
Islam is a F-ALLAH-CY!
TheProphetMo 8 months ago
@laloca787894:
Let me tell you what progress in islam means.
Muslims are born, and they progress from learning how to kill, to killing themselves and us.
The bit in between, like bending over in a mosque to their fantasy god is irrelevant.
Muslims say: peace, peace, peace - but the koran says: kill, kill, kill!
Islam is a political stance that holds death as its absolute pinnacle.
It is the very breath and vomit of Satan.
We have been well warned.
TheProphetMo 8 months ago
@TheProphetMo
honestly, and im asking HONESTLY (eventhough i know you will not answer truthfully)
have you even bothered to read the Quran? muslims say peace peace pease because the quran says peace peace peace. have you ever met a real muslim properly? stop living in between walls!
laloca787894 8 months ago
Africans must get beyond the question of colour, they must recognise the problems which confront the whole world, like all human beings.
If others undervalue us, that has no further significance for us.
Africa must stop deriving everything from the European or Arab view.
Africans must throw off the shackles of man made religions like Islam.
Often in Africa it's only the men who speak, but one forgets the role of women.
There can be no development in Africa if women are left out of the account.
TheProphetMo 8 months ago
@lovellae:
Let me tell you what progress in islam means.
Muslims are born, and they progress from learning how to kill, to killing themselves and us.
The bit in between, like bending over in a mosque to their fantasy god is irrelevant.
Muslims say: peace, peace, peace - but the koran says: kill, kill, kill!
Islam is a political stance that holds death as its absolute pinnacle.
It is the very breath and vomit of Satan.
We have been well warned.
TheProphetMo 8 months ago
@lovellae:
Millions are leaving islam every year in Africa, but you poor deluded fools continue to lie, not only about the murderous history of islam, but about the continuing deaths at the hands of your violence.
Muslim women are baby machines, and it is solely through the sickenly high muslim birthrates that your odious and repulsive death cult is stable in numbers.
Never mind the history of colonialism - the world is awakening to the vile and contemptible nature of your bloody ummah.
TheProphetMo 8 months ago
@lovellae:
It is a historical fact that Malcolm X left islam long before he died.
And the idea of a 'Nation' is just as spurious and laughably ridiculous as islam itself.
Yes the whole world raped Africa, and continues to do so, but islam practically invented slavery and is the root cause of massive hatred, violence and bloodshed everywhere.
There is nothing - absolutely nothing - in its teachings that can even begin to justify such unbridled arrogance and presumption.
Islam is a F-ALLAH-CY!
TheProphetMo 8 months ago