Puesta en escena de la masculinidad: el impacto de los legados ancestrales y coloniales en las relaciones de género y la transformación social a través del estreno cinematográfico de Sembene Ousmane (1960-1965)

Abstract

This article studies the debut of Sembene Ousmane’s cinematic narrative during the early years of Senegal’s independence. Sembene was a renowned anti-colonial Senegalese writer who shifted to filmmaking during the “independence interlude”, from 1960 to 1965, with his first film Borom Sarret (1963), he became a pioneer of African cinema. Sembene’s revolutionary filmmaking and radical artistic project catapulted him to the realm of world cinema. Drawing on postcolonial film criticism, this article focuses on two of Sembene’s pioneering films: Borom Sarret and Niaye. I argue that he strategically crafted these films to genuinely contribute to the collective effort of postcolonial reconstruction. I start with a brief review of Sembene’s literary works during the independence interlude to understand how this period influenced his artistic perspective and cinematic narrative regarding gender. I then delve into an analysis of masculinity and colonial legacy in Borom Sarret, and finally focus on Niaye to explore how the filmaker depicts collective memory and patriarchal dynamics in a pseudo-feudal society in transition from colonialism to independence, from tradition to modernity. This article contributes to a better understanding of how Sembene approached social transformation, navigated (post)colonial power structures shaped by colonial and ancestral legacies, and established himself as an iconoclastic artist