SEMBENE!

Short Synopsis

A freedom fighter who used stories as his weapon: meet Ousmane Sembene, the father of African cinema.

Description/Treatment

In the early 1950s, a Senegalese dockworker with a fifth-grade education taught himself to write. During the next 50 years, Ousmane Sembene reinvented himself as a new breed of freedom fighter, one who chose
stories, not guns, as his weapon of choice in the battle for a free and just Africa. The 75-minute HD documentary SEMBENE! tells the remarkable, inspirational true-life story of Ousmane Sembene, a giant of African culture who the New York Times described as "the filmmaker who discovered Africa's voice." Based on 18 years of research by biographer Samba Gadjigo, SEMBENE! is designed to motivate young people --
particularly those from marginalized communities -- to use their own stories to create a better world.

As a story about storytelling, SEMBENE! itself unfolds as a tale being told -- it is a documentary inside of a folk tale. Our narrator, an animated West African storyteller, uses the magic at his disposal to guide us through Sembene's life, which is as exciting, eventful and dramatic as a Hollywood feature. Born in Senegal in 1923, Sembene was kicked out of school in sixth grade (for refusing to sing France's national anthem), spent his teenage years as a laborer, served the French Army in World War II, worked on the docks in Marseilles and while in his 30s, and after 20 years as a manual laborer, reinvented himself as a political activist, labor leader and acclaimed novelist. In his 40s, Sembene taught himself filmmaking, a herculean feat on a continent
with virtually no indigenous cinema. Facing enormous odds -- he spent 40 years making just nine features -- Sembene set a new standard for independent filmmaking, demonstrating the potential for cinema from the
margins of global culture. Sembene's powerful, eye-opening films (winners of awards at Venice and Cannes) reflect African cultures, stories and concerns in African languages, providing a much-needed counter-narrative to the foreign media that continues to flood the continent.

SEMBENE weaves its animation with new and archival footage and elements from Sembene's films, an approach designed to honor West African storytelling traditions and allow social and political themes to be
distilled into impactful visuals. The animation also is intended to connect with younger audiences.

Sembene considered the reclamation of a culture's own stories, in all forms, central to any social justice movement. With that in mind, SEMBENE!, in addition to traditional outlets in Europe and the Americas,
will be released in webisodes and in serial text and audio versions in Africa, representing the first broad attempt to use digital and mobile technologies to distribute an African documentary.

In its various forms, SEMBENE! provides insights into the past 80 tumultuous years of the experience of Africans at home and abroad, and celebrates the possibilities of storytelling as a means of empowerment
and cultural preservation, with a focus on the important role independent, indigenous media plays in a healthy culture.