> xposted from H-AFRLITCINE@H-NET.MSU.EDU
>
> From: Creative Arts Television
> [CATARCHIVE@AOL.COM]
>
> This memo is in response to several inquiries we
> have received for more
> detailed information on the 1978 television
> documentary THE CINEMA OF SENEGAL.
>
> This documentary is 27 minutes long and was made
> when the Senegalese film director Ousmane SEMBENE
> was in the United States on the occasion of the
> premier of his new film CEDDO. On this program he
> discusses filmmaking in Senegal, and by extension
> filmmaking in black Africa with his compatriot the
> elder statesman of African filmmaking Paulin
> Soumanou VIEYRA and Larry KARDISH, Associate
> Curator in the Programming Division of the Museum
> of Modern Art in New York City. Mr. Kardish had at
> that time arranged a retrospective of African
> films at the Museum.
>
> Excerpts are shown on this program from Mr.
> Sembene's film, and from ET LA NIEGE N'ETAIT PLUS
> by Ababacar Samb-Makharam, and REOUH-TAKH by
> Mahama Johnson Traore.
>
> The conversation is in French with a very
> competent voice over translation. Senegal was in
> 1978 the only country in sub-Saharan Africa with a
> film community, and this community was
> astonishingly vital. The 20 or 30 directors there
> had managed to make films against tremendous odds.
> There were no production facilities in the
> country -- all lab work was done in France.
> Indeed, films in Senegal were until a few years
> before this program produced only in the French
> language because Senegal has several different
> languages, no one of which -- it was
> thought --would have guaranteed an audience
> sufficient to warrant nationwide distribution.
> The topics discussed with some passion on this
> program concern this situation and such other
> themes as art in a post-colonial society,
> censorship and self-censorship, and the way
> Senegalese films track the underlying concerns of
> society, including the conflict between
> Christianity and Islam and both with old
> indigenous religions, the role of educated
> Senegalese who return to a country in which they
> can no longer relate so comfortably to older
> traditions, etc. The film clips, too, reflect
> these themes.
>
> $49.95, prepaid, plus shipping of $5 per package
> in USA.
> Creative Arts Television
> Post Office Box 739
> Kent, CT 06757
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