15th Annual Massachusetts Multicultural Film Festival
The Interdepartmental Program in Film Studies announces the start of its 15th Annual Massachusetts Multicultural Film Festival: Africanicities: Conflict and Community.
The Festival begins Wednesday, February 6 with a tribute to Ousmane Sembene (1923-2007), the legendary filmmaker, writer, and renowned "father" of African cinema, with two of his early works.
LA NOIRE DE.../Black Girl (1965, 65min)
A founding work of African cinema, Sembene's debut feature tells a bitter story of exile and despair. Shot in a restrained New Wave style, the film follows a Senegalese maid taken to the Riviera by her employers. Once out of Africa, she learns what it means to be Other, to be a thing: "the black girl."
BOROM SARRET (1964, 20min)
A spare masterpiece of protest chronicling a day in the life of a cart-driver in Dakar. Sembene's first film.
Introduced by Samba Gadjigo, professor of French/African Studies at Mount Holyoke College.
