Ousmane Sembene: An Interview

Abstract

Ousmane Sembene is a slight but sturdy Senegalese, a charming and provocative conversationalist, a committed revolutionary. He is also a Third World film-maker of major force and accomplishment, whose international reputation as Africa's most important director is based remarkably on a total output of only five films, though he was previously well known as a novelist. As a leading spokesman of sub-Sahara's black artistry, Sembene has travelled the world personally, projecting his films and spreading his basic message of pride and confidence in the heritage and culture of Africa's native peoples. On such occasions in America and on the Continent, the films of Sembene have been heralded. In Africa, however, these volatile works usually are banned, typically through pressure brought by the French government, which maintains a vigilant watch over its former colonies. Only Sembene's first full-length feature, Mandabi, has been widely distributed outside of Senegal. The 49-year-old Sembene was born at Ziguinchor in the rural southern region of Senegal, where the action of Emitai, his latest film, takes place. Unlike other European-educated African film-makers and writers, Sembene had little formal schooling-only three years of vocational training beyond the primary grades. Sembene's life paralleled the story of French recruitment of unwilling African natives told in Emitai: he fought in the French army during World War II as a forced enlistee. He remained afterward for a time in France, employed as a dockworker and union organizer in Marseilles while training himself to be a writer. Sembene has published five novels and a collection of short stories, a body of work so impressive as to place him at the forefront of African writers. His most famous novel, Les Bouts de Bois de Dieu (translated in America as God's