The great activist Angela Davis talks about her friend and inspiration Ousmane Sembene, the father of African cinema Sembene Across Africa 2020 October 19th - 25th
1:05 "his art is inconceivable without his politics". Ms. Davis is incorrect here. Sembene's films mock politicians and politics in general. Sembene hated the colonial governments, and after the post-colonial governments took over, he mocked them as well. This was done quite brilliantly in his film Xala. In his film Ceddo, he mocked the post-colonial governments of the time, and the film was actually banned in Senegal. So his art touched on politics, for sure, but her statement makes it sound like his films were explicitly political, aka arguing for one side, when in reality, they are not. Art is above politics.
“Cinema is like an ongoing political rally with the audience. In a movie theatre, you have Catholics, Muslims, Gaullists, Communists if the film is any good” Ousmane Sembène
From an obvious polemic against female circumcision in 2004’s Moolaadé to the treatment of the disenfranchised working class in Black Girl, please explain how his films are not political
