Senegalese director Ousmane Sembène was the first sub-Saharan African filmmaker to achieve international recognition and is widely regarded as 'the father of African cinema'. His first major work, Black Girl, is a sophisticated drama which won the 1966 Prix Jean Vigo, and which tells the story of Diouanne (Thérèse M'Bisine Diop), a young Senegalese woman eager to find a better life and who takes a job as a governess for a bourgeois French family. Mistreated by her employers, Diouanne's hopes turn to disillusionment and she descends into a state of isolation and... despair. Sembène draws from the Nouvelle Vague, but the film's heart and soul is most definitely African. Sembène's directional debut, the short Borom Sarret, was the first ever indigenous black African film. An allegorical tale exploring poverty and inequality, it follows the difficult life of a hard-up cart driver in Dakar. [show more]
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Double bill of African dramas written and directed by Ousmane Sembene. 'Black Girl' (1966) follows Sengalese woman Diouana (Mbissine Diop) as she travels to France in search of a better life. But as she starts work as a maid in the south of the country, the reality of her new life leads to her feeling disillusioned, isolated and without a way out. The short 'Sarret' (1969) follows a day in the life of a poor horse cart driver (Ly Abdoulay) in Dakar. After he is requested to take one of his customers to a wealthy, white neighbourhood, the cart driver finds his livelihood at the mercy of the law.
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