"I had been everywhere to experience peoples, ethic groups, cultures. I was forty years old and wanted to make films. I wanted to give a different impression of Africa. As our culture is oral, I wanted to show reality through masks, dance, representation. Publishing a book written in French only reaches a minority of people, whereas with a film one can do "Kino Pravda", like Dziga Vertov, fairground cinema that allows one to converse with people, to exchange ideas."

"I don't know why I film but I am inhabited by a whole people and I must bear witness to my epoch."
Sembene Ousmane

BIOGRAPHY

Born in 1923 in Senegal, Sembene Ousmane is a pioneer of African cinema, using filmmaking as a means to show a "different Africa" and share his socio-political view of the continent.
Mobilized in the Senegalese infantry in 1942, he then arrives in Marseilles illegally in 1946, where he lives off odd jobs and joins the CGT union and the French communist party. It is at this time that he discovers literature (he publishes Le Docker noir in 1956; Ô pays, mon beau peuple in 1957; Les Bouts de bois de Dieu in 1960). At age 38, he turns to filmmaking, studies at the Gorki studio in Moscow and, in 1966, makes La Noire de..., the first African feature film.
Testimony to the current and past situation in Africa, his films fight for the preservation of his people's identity, whether in religious Ceddo (1976) or political terms Le Camp de Thiaroye (1988). Since 1999, his triptych "Héroïsme au quotidian" pays tribute to African women with Faat Kiné and Moolaadé, awarded the Prix Un Certain Regard 2004. La Confrérie des Rats, the third part of the fresco is currently in development.
Although he has won many prizes, Sembene Ousmane, untiring, still declaims his support for militant film and travels all over Africa, from village to village, to show his films and continue his dialogue with his people.

PRINCIPAL FILMS

2003 Moolaade (Prix Un Certain Regard, 2004)
2000 Faat Kine
1993 Guelwaar (Gold Medal from the Senate of Venice, 1992)
1988 The Camp at Thiaroye (Special Jury Prize, Venice)
1976 Ceddo (Sélection Officielle at Cannes, 1977)
1974 Xala
1968 Mandabi (Special Jury Prize, Venice)
1966 Black Girl... (Prix Jean Vigo)
1963 Borom Sarret (CM)