The impact of filmmaker Ousmane Sembène’s work should not be understated. His films, made in the neorealist style, were concerned with working-class people and tended to use non-professional actors. This allowed him to represent African life on its own terms, focusing on African characters as distinct, thinking and speaking individuals beyond predictable stereotypes. He was also the first to make a film in an African language. For this, he is considered the “father of African cinema”.
Famously stating “Europe is not my centre”, he was a leading voice among a group of filmmakers, often referred to as the “pioneers” of African cinema, who emerged in the 1950s and ’60s.
Sembène (1923-2007) was deeply motivated by a need for political and social change. He was equally a fierce critic of colonialism and its legacies, the post-independence realities across Africa, as well as the strictures of “tradition”. These themes feature heavily across his nine feature films made between 1966 and 2004.
