Ousmane Sembéne: Dialogues with Critics & Writers
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1993-01-01
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(1993)
Aesthetics, Ideology, and Social Commitment in the Prose Fiction of Ousmane Sembene
(1993) Case, Frederick Ivor
The prose fiction of Ousmane Sembene is very easy to comprehend on the surface but it is, in fact, profoundly complex. There is a remarkable consistency in his work: a preoccupation with the struggles of the working poor and the unemployed; and also with the exploitation and oppression of a relentless capitalism that seriously threatens the social and cultural structures ofsociety as well as the inner recesses of the mind. There is also a consistent aesthetic context in his work, in which African artistic principles underlie and undermine the limitations of French forms of expression, since these forms do not always provide the author with the semantic, linguistic, and symbolic tools he needs.
The Uniqueness of Ousmane Sembene's Cinema
(1993) Pfaff, Francoise
The author of two documentary and nine fiction films made over a period of twenty-five years, Ousmane Sembene is presently one of Africa's leading writers as well as the continent's best-known film director. His seminal films, by their very nature, content, and style, have left an indelible mark on the history of African filmmaking. Before launching his career as a writer and filmmaker, Sembene had worked as a mason, carpenter, mechanic, dock worker, union organizer, and had also served as a sharpshooter in the French colonial army during the Second World War.
Official History, Popular Memory: Reconfiguration of the African Past in the Films of Ousmane Sembene
Cham, Mbye
The last two decades in Africa have yielded a significant crop of films devoted primarily to a critical engagement with the African past as a way of coming to terms with the many crises and challenges confronting contemporary African societies. This current preoccupation with history, and its implications for the present, underlies a number of films which have been produced during these past two decades.
Film Production in Francophone Africa 1961 to 1977: Ousmane Sembene -- An Exception
(1993) Andrade-Watkins, Claire
The advent of independence throughout francophone Africa in 1960 ushered in an era of transition for France and her former colonies. France provided development assistance and technical expertise to former francophone African colonies through the Ministry of Cooperation, created expressly for the newly independent countries. In cinema, financial and technical assistance was provided on two levels: The Consortium Audiovisuel International (CAl), the private sector ann of the Ministry of Cooperation established in 1961, produced newsreels, educational documentaries, and other special projects for the former colonies; theBureau du Cinema (Film Bureau),on the other hand, provided financial and technical assistance to African fIlmmakers.