Sembene!

The father of African cinema, Ousmane Sembène (1923-2007) was an enigmatic figure, living an uprooted early life—dropping out of fifth grade, working with his fisherman father in their rural village in Senegal, moving to Dakar, fighting for the French in World War II—before stowing away to France in the late 1940s, where he was exposed to Western literature, music, and the arts while working the docks in Marseille. Sembène became a novelist, traveled to the Soviet Union to study cinema at the famed Gorky Film Studio in Moscow, and then returned to Senegal determined to make socially conscious films that told African stories for Africans. Sembène's subsequent work took the continent—and world—by storm, placing him among the world's best filmmakers. Sembene! documents the filmmaker's life through the eyes of his longtime friend, Mount Holyoke College professor Samba Gadjigo (who also serves as co-director of the film with Jason Silverman). After Sembène's death, Gadjigo traveled to the filmmaker's home in Dakar, which served as a cultural salon for international artists and political figures in its heyday, only to find it in disarray, with Sembène's films and papers disintegrating from neglect. This inspired Gadjigo to preserve Sembène's legacy, an effort that included this film detailing Sembène's incredible life through a wealth of interviews with the late filmmaker and his family and collaborators, as well as film clips that reveal his artistry, from the low-budget Borom Sarret (1963), widely considered the first African film made by a black African, to his final film, Moolaadé (2004), which dealt with female genital mutilation in Africa. The film is not pure celebration, however. Sembène's indiscretions are laid bare, including accounts of how he essentially stole a student's ideas and funding to serve his own purposes. Serving up a real portrait of the man and artist—not posthumous myth-building—this is highly recommended. Editor's Choice. [Note: DVD extras include a “making-of” featurette for Ousmane Sembène's 2005 film Moolaadé (25 min.), “On Sembène” reflections from activist Angela Davis, singer Youssou N'Dour, writers Ngugiwa Thiong'o and Cheikh Hamidou Kane, and others (19 min.), a “Sembène for the People” featurette on the film's screening in Senegal (6 min.), a “Samba's Childhood” segment on co-writer/director Samba Gadjigo (3 min.), and trailers. Bottom line: a fine extras package for an excellent biographical doc.] (P. Morehart)