Benin / Senegal
Paulin Soumanou Vieyra was born in Porto-Novo, Benin in January of 1925, but grew up in Senegal. He was a director, writer, critic and historian of African cinema. His film Afrique sur Seine, co-directed by aspiring filmmakers Jacques Melo Kane and Mamadou Sarr and shot by Robert Caristan, is credited as being one of the first francophone African films to ever be released. This quartet became known as "The African Cinema Group." Vieyra was a founding member of film institutions including The Pan-African Federation of Filmmakers (FEPACI) and the Pan-African Film Festival of Ouagadougou (FESPACO). Vieyra was the mentor of great figures of the seventh art, such as Ousmane Sembène, Djibril Diop Mambéty, and Ababacar Samb-Makharam. He passed away in November of 1987 at the age of 62. Biography Source
C’était il y a quatre ans
(1954)
Afrique sur Seine
(1955)
L’Afrique à Moscou
(1957)
Le Niger aujourd’hui
(1958)
Les présidents Senghor et Modibo Keita
(1959)
Avec les Africaines à Vienne
(1959)
“Présence Africaine” à Rome
(1959)
Indépendance du Cameroun, Togo, Congo, Madagascar
(1960)
Une nation est née (A Nation is Born)
(1961)
Lamb
(1963)
Voyage du président Senghor en Italie
(1963)
Voyage présidentiel en URSS
(1963)
Avec l’ensemble national
(1964)
Écrit du Caire
(1964)
Sindiely
(1964)
Voyage du président Senghor au Brésil
(1964)
N’diongane
(1965)
Le Sénégal au festival national des arts nègres
(1966)
Môl
(1966)
Au marché
(1967)
La bicyclette
(1967)
Le gâteau
(1967)
Rendez-vous
(1967)
Écrit de Dakar
(1974)
L’art plastique
(1974)
L’habitat rural au Sénégal
(1976)
L’habitat urbain au Sénégal
(1976)
Birago Diop
(1981)
En résidence surveillée
(1981)
L’envers du décor – Ousmane Sembène: The Making of Ceddo
(1981)
Les oiseaux
(1981)
Iba N’diaye
(1982)
A short film about the famous Senegalese writer and poet. While young writers of Antillean and African descent chose poetry to express the search for their identity within the Negritude movement, Birago Diop adopted African folklore as a mode of expression.
In 1958, Vieyra set up a special office dedicated to film in Senegal, which, after the independence (1960), became the base of the country’s cinematography. A Nation is Born is a historical portrait of Vieyra’s homeland.
Paulin Vieyra captures Ousmane Sembène, one of the greatest filmmakers of Africa, during the filming of Ceddo.
Vieyra and his collaborator Mamadou Sarr explore the lives of Africans living in Paris, poetically evoking the ambiguities and questions about identity that plague students educated in colonialist spaces, removed from their comfort zone.
This documentary captures the sport of traditional wrestling, called ‘lamb’ in Wolof, popular in Senegal.
Senegal / 1963 / 18mins / Documentary / Wolof and French
Senegal / 1981 / 25mins / Documentary / Wolof and French
Senegal / 1961 / 19mins / Documentary / Wolof and French
Senegal / 1955 / 21mins / Documentary / French