Newswise — Mount Holyoke professor of French Samba Gadjigo is continuing his work on Ousmane Sembène, the renowned African author and filmmaker, with a new book and a film project.
Gadjigo's "Ousmane Sembène: The Making of a Militant Artist" was published this month by Indiana University Press. Now Gadjigo is telling the story of the "father of African film" in the medium closest to the subject's own heart, a documentary titled "SEMBÈNE!" – and this week his film proposal is being featured by the prestigious Tribeca Film Institute (TFI) as one of just two dozen projects selected for the Tribeca All Access (TAA) festival and awards competition in New York City.
In 2007, Gadjigo penned a long-awaited biography, titled "Ousmane Sembène: Une Conscience Africaine," which covered Sembène's life from his birth in Senegal in 1923 to the writing of his first book in 1956. In his new book, he presents a personal portrait and intellectual history of Sembène, places him into the context of African colonial and postcolonial culture, and charts his achievements in film and literature.
"Samba Gadjigo has undertaken a very important task, that of writing the first biography of one of the best-known and most influential African writers – and the founder of the continent's cinema – Ousmane Sembène," said Christopher L. Miller, author of "The French Atlantic Triangle." The book includes a foreward by actor Danny Glover.
By telling his story in the added medium of film, Gadjigo hopes to reach a new and wider audience. "SEMBÈNE!," he explained, will "celebrate a sixth-grade dropout who fought a 50-year battle to return African stories to Africa." The filmmaker's life and work demonstrate "the importance of self-empowerment, resistence, and storytelling," Gadjigo added.
Currently in its seventh year, Tribeca All Access was created to cultivate relationships between filmmakers from traditionally underrepresented communities and film industry executives. Twenty-four filmmakers from across the country were selected from a pool of 453 submissions to participate in TAA this year. From April 19 to 24, women and minority directors and screenwriters are participating in workshops and presenting their upcoming projects in one-on-one meetings with more than 100 potential investors, development executives, producers, and agents.
"Through TAA, we provide woman and minority filmmakers professional connections they might not otherwise have access to," said Jane Rosenthal, who co-founded TFI with actor Robert De Niro and Craig Hatkoff. "But equally important to the valuable networking opportunities and guidance we provide our participants, is furthering our goal of bringing diverse voices and stories to audiences."
The organization will also present the film projects throughout the six-day program taking place during the annual Tribeca Film Festival between April 21 and May 2.
Sembène, who died in 2007 at age 84, started out working as a bricklayer, fought in World War II as a colonial infantryman, and then became a trade union organizer and a political activist in the French Communist Party and in pro-independence African parties in Marseilles, France, before turning his attention to writing and filmmaking in the 1960s. He created ten highly-respected films during his career, including the Cannes Festival winner "Moolaade."
Gadjigo, who was born and raised in Senegal, had his first taste of Sembène's work as a high school student, when he read "God's Bits of Wood." From that point on, he was an avid follower and scholar of Sembène's writing and films. The two first met in 1989 when Gadjigo invited the filmmaker to participate in a conference on his work presented by the Five College African Studies Consortium. When Gadjigo approached Sembène in 1994 about writing his biography, Sembène anointed him his official biographer. Though Sembène – who died in 2007 at age 84 – persistently deflected attention away from his private life and past, Gadjigo had unprecedented access to the artist and his family.
Mount Holyoke College, located in South Hadley, Massachusetts, is the oldest women's college in the nation and one of its finest liberal arts schools. Its students come from 48 states and nearly 70 countries. Rigorous academics and an internationally diverse student body create an environment that prepares women to meet the challenges of our increasingly complex world. The Five College Consortium of western Massachusetts consists of Mount Holyoke, Smith, Amherst, and Hampshire Colleges and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
Related Links:
Samba Gadjigohttp://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/misc/profile/sgadjigo.shtml
Ousmane Sembène: The Making of a Militant Artisthttp://www.iupress.indiana.edu/catalo/product_info.php?products_id=137565
Tribeca Film Festivalhttp://www.tribecafilminstitute.org/
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