About the Film

In 1952, Ousmane Sembene, a dockworker and fifth-grade dropout from Senegal, began dreaming an impossible dream: to become the storyteller for a new Africa. SEMBENE! tells the unbelievable true story of the father of African cinema, the self- taught novelist and filmmaker who fought, against enormous odds, a 50-year battle to return African stories to Africans. SEMBENE! is told through the experiences of the man who knew him best, colleague and biographer Samba Gadjigo, using rare archival footage and more than 100 hours of exclusive materials. A true-life epic, SEMBENE! follows an ordinary man who transforms himself into a fearless spokesperson for the marginalized, becoming a hero to millions. After a startling fall from grace, can Sembene reinvent himself once more?

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Join the Conversation

Following the screening of SEMBENE! there will be a Q&A by Dr. Claire Andrade-Watkins and Dr. Samba Gadjigo.

Schedule

7:00pm - Introduction of the film by Dr. Claire Andrade-Watkins and Dr. Samba Gadjigo
7:10pm - Film (82 minutes)
8:40pm - Q&A by Dr. Claire Andrade-Watkins and Dr. Samba Gadjigo

About Dr. Samba Gadjigo

Samba Gadjigo is Professor of French and former Head of the French Department at Mount Holyoke College. He is the world’s foremost expert on the life and work of Ousmane Sembene. He is the author of Sembene’s official biography ,Ousmane Sembene: The Making of A Militant Artist; Ecole blanche, Afrique noir: L'image de l'ecole coloniale dans le roman africaine francophone; editor of Ousmane Sembene: Dialogue with Critics and Writers, and co-editor of Un viatique pour l'éternité : hommage à Ousmane Sembène. He is the director of the documentary Making of Moolaade and co-director of SEMBENE!, an official selection for Sundance 2015 International Documentary Competition. In addition to his course offerings in the French department, Gadjigo is a member of the Mount Holyoke College African American and African Studies program faculty.

 

About Dr. Claire Andrade-Watkins

Dr. Claire Andrade-Watkins, Associate Professor of Visual and Media Arts and 2014 Swearer Center Community Fellow and 2015 Visiting Scholar in the Center for Slavery and Justice, Brown University, is an award-winning historian and filmmaker. Her scholarship focuses on French and Portuguese-speaking African cinema. She has published in Society for Visual Anthropology, Research in African Literature, The Independent Film and Video Monthly, American Historical Review, and CinémAction, Her essays on Ousmane Sembene and his work have appeared in Ousmane Sembene: Dialogue with Critics and Writers and Un viatique pour l'éternité : Hommage à Ousmane Sembène. Her first feature film, "Some Kind of Funny Porto Rican?": A Cape Verdean American Story was released in 2006.
 

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