Senegal / 1981 / 21mins / Documentary, Portrait / Wolof and French

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.

Paulin Soumanou Vieyra

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. Learn More