Ousmane Sembène

Senegalese filmmaker who weaponized cinema as post-colonial Africa's social conscience

Dubbed 'the father of African cinema', Ousmane Sembène transitioned from dockworker to creating radical films that exposed neo-colonial exploitation. His 1966 classic 'La Noire de...' became sub-Saharan Africa's first internationally distributed feature film.

Through works like 'Mandabi' (1968), he critiqued Western aid systems using Wolof language and sardonic storytelling. The banned film 'Xala' (1975) satirized corrupt African elites through magical realism, inspiring Arab Spring-era filmmakers.

Festival des 3 Continents called his guerrilla filmmaking style 'cinematic décalage' - using discontinuity editing to mirror Africa's fractured postcolonial identity. His Dakar-based production collective trained generations of African auteurs.