When Haile Gerima, the acclaimed Ethiopian-born filmmaker of Harvest 3000 Years (1976) and Bush Mama (1979), saw Ousmane Sembène’s film Mandabi (1968) for the first time, he said it almost gave him a heart attack. Perhaps the reason for this excitement is harder to imagine for a contemporary Western audience; what shocked him was that the actors spoke Wolof, their native language, and not French, the language imposed on them by their former colonizers. One of the continents’ first films made in Wolof, this milestone in Africa’s cinematographic and emancipatory history wasn’t Sembène’s first attempt at making a film in which the actors speak in their own language. Some years earlier he planned to shoot La Noire de… in Wolof, but was forced to rewrite the script in French in order to get the film financed. This meant that even the internal monologues of the Senegalese protagonist Gomis Diouana (played...
- 8/29/2019
- MUBI
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.