Paulin Soumanou Vieyra in the Documents of the Rediscovered Audiovisual Archive of the Senegalese Ministry of Culture

Abstract

Encouraged by Senegalese president Léopold Senghor, the Festival Mondial des arts nègres (FESMAN) of April 1966 hosted a large number of African and diasporic artists to celebrate an African Renaissance, through several cultural events that strengthened Blackness on the world stage. Working for the "Actualités Sénégalaises," Paulin Vieyra filmed a special piece entitled Le Sénégal au Fesman, a film previously thought lost to time before being rediscovered in the Senegalese National Cinémathèque and restored by the author of this article, who describes the importance of this find, as well as provides an account of the restoration process and the content of the recovered film. The black-and-white images shot by Vieyra show the preparations that Senegal made in order to host the FESMAN and show the visitors from around the world that Dakar was no longer "silt houses and shacks" but a modern and dynamic city involved in African development. Vieyra's images put on display the extension of the new airport, the touristic facilities, the city's natural beauty and its status as a cultural melting pot, as well as its cultural contributions: the Dynamic Museum, its film production, its artistic production, and its literary one, flowing toward the future with confidence, peace, and prosperity from the centuries-old traditions that are the solid foundations of Senegalese culture. In this film, Vieyra portrays a dynamic Senegal that wants to impose itself on an international level as a reference point for a rising Africa which leaves its colonial past behind and is projected without a complex into the future.