Senegal and USA / 2015 / 82mins / Biography, Documentary / English and French

In 1952, Ousmane Sembene, a Senegalese dockworker and fifth-grade dropout, began dreaming an impossible dream: to become the storyteller for a new Africa. Sembene! chronicles the self-taught novelist and filmmaker’s 50-year struggle to return African stories to Africans and become the father of African cinema. Sembene’s colleague and biographer Samba Gadjigo uses rare archival footage and more than 100 hours of exclusive materials to tell this remarkable story of an ordinary man who transformed himself into a fearless spokesperson and hero for the marginalized.

Samba Gadjigo

Samba Gadjigo, writer, producer and director, is the world's foremost expert on the career of Ousmane Sembène. He was the official biographer of the late filmmaker, and acted as Sembène’s agent in the United States. Born and raised in Senegal, Gadjigo was educated at the University of Dakar and the École Normale Supérieure, also in Dakar, and received his PhD from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. His dissertation, published in 1990, analyzed representations of the French system of schooling in West Africa. In addition to having written and edited several books, he frequently contributes articles about French and francophone African literature and film. In 1986, Samba Gadjigo joined the faculty of Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Mass., is former chair of the French Department and member of the African American and African Studies departments. Gadjigo has lectured widely on Sembène and on African cinema, literature and culture at institutions including Harvard and Brown universities. He is director of The Making of Moolaadé, a documentary that was shown at film festivals and is available on the DVD of Sembène's award-winning film Moolaadé. He is also the co-director of the 2015 documentary, SEMBENE!, profiling the African freedom fighter and "father of African cinema." Learn More

Jason Silverman

Jason Silverman is an award-winning film producer and longtime festival director. He has produced large-scale events for the Smithsonian, the Lensic Center for the Arts, the Tribeca Film Festival and the Lannan Foundation. He is currently Cinematheque Director at the Center for Contemporary Arts, Santa Fe, and former Artistic Director of the Taos Talking Picture Festival and in 2014, was recognized with the Santa Fe Mayor's Award for Excellence in the Arts. He has written more than 400 articles for several publications such as Wired, Time Out New York, etc. He is a former adjunct professor at the Institute of American Indian Arts. The feature film SEMBENE!, which premiered in competition at the 2015 Sundance Film and the Cannes Festival du Film, where it was one of the top eight finalists for the Camera d'Or. Learn More