Ousmane Sembène

Ousmane Sembène has died. He was a great novelest and the greatest African filmmaker, whose beautiful, touching and often hilarious films provided an inside view of Senegal and post colonial (or rather neo-colonial) Africa. There is a film about him by Manthia Diawara and Ngugi Wa Thiong'o which is distributed by Third World Newsreel.Unfortuantely many of his films are very expensive to rent (New Yorker Films), but several are on DVD and you can search for them at Amazon. I recommend Xala, The Money Order and his great early films, for example, Baron Sarret and Black Girl. His latest film Moonade is only available in Europe. You can get a copy here, but it is in PAL (European standard) format. "As far as I am concerned, I no longer support notions of purity. Purity has become a thing of the past. . . I constantly question myself. I am neither looking for a school nor for a solution but asking questions and making others think."