Xala

Ousmane Sembène is known as the “father of African cinema”. An adaptation of his own 1973 novel, Xala is a hilarious, caustic satire of political corruption under an inept post-colonial patriarchy (the opening sequence shows Africans taking over the Chamber of Commerce in Dakar and immediately swapping their robes for suits, Wolof for French, and accepting briefcases full of cash). On the night of his wedding to his third bride, government official El Hadji (Thierno Leye) is rendered impotent and begins to suspect that one of his other wives has placed a curse on him. After seeking a cure from a local marabout, El Hadji must face the possibility that he deserves the infliction for his part in embezzling public funds and for helping to keep Senegal under French control. Adeptly combining elements of African folklore and popular cinema, Sembène indicts the hubris, entitlement, and opportunism of male authority figures.

About Ousmane Sembène:

A reader who studied Marx, Neruda, Jack London, Birago Diop, Richard Wright and Hemingway, the self-taught Sembène published his first poem in 1956 and before returning to Africa in 1960 published three successful novels. During a 1961 tour of Africa, then exploding with revolutionary fervor, creative possibility and post-colonial backlash, this laborer-turned-writer recognized that African people could not be effectively reached through written literature in any language. Cinema, however, could tell the essential stories of Africa to the African people. Sembène chose to devote his energies to creating emancipating and restorative images for the African people.

After his first, award-winning feature Black Girl (1966), Sembène began building the literary and cinematographic legacy that today situates him the “father” of African films. Sembène was among the first filmmakers to “indigenize” cinema, forgoing Hollywood-style moviemaking for African narrative structures and aesthetics. He created his own production company, working independently of the European system that continues to dictate filmmaking practice in Africa today.

Sembène’s introduction of genuinely African film aesthetics informed cinematic practice both in Africa and around the world, offering inspiration for other marginalized societies, whose members began to pick up cameras and tell their own stories.

Sunday’s Pantheon screening will feature a 15-minute introduction by a local film scholar and be followed by an audience talkback.

A delicious comedy. The work of one of the most remarkable artists in the world.

Jack Kroll, Newsweek

Invigorating… The jokes and details are delightful, yet there’s real anger behind them, and it bursts spectacularly into view in the concluding frames.

Geoff Brown, Time Out