Take me to:
About the filmThis special online preview, available to watch between 25–27 May, provides an opportunity to see a new restoration of Ousmane Sembène’s Mandabi before its release in cinemas on 11 June, and includes an exclusive panel discussion on the continued relevance of Sembène’s anti-colonial works.
With his startlingly funny but clear-eyed satire Mandabi, Ousmane Sembène made a bid for the world to reorient itself towards Africa as the heart of cinema. The first feature ever made in an African language, Mandabi fulfilled Sembène’s dream “to restore Africa’s stories to Africans.”
Panel Discussion – Ousmane Sembène’s Mandabi: Then & Now
Join us at 7pm on Thursday 27 May for a deeper look at Mandabi, featuring conversations on Sembène’s radical anti-colonial filmmaking and why the story of a man caught in a bureaucratic web is still relevant to Africa today.
We’ll be joined by Liz Chege (Director of Africa in Motion), Dr. Aboubakar Sanogo (Associate Professor in Film Studies at Carleton University, Ottawa) and Ivan Mbowa (East Africa General Manager of Tala for East Africa). Tala is a mobile technology and data science company focused on the expansion of credit to the underserved.
About the film
Set in Dakar, Mandabi tells the story of Ibrahim (Makhouredia Gueye) and the transformative effect that a 25,000 franc money order from his nephew in Paris has on his fortunes. Word quickly travels about his new found wealth, while a thousand bureaucratic obstacles stand in the path between him and his money. Ibrahim, preening and scheming, laying bets he has no means to collect, is a superb character study. But Mandabi is also a sprightly but stiletto-sharp satire on post-independence African nations and the shadow cast by colonialism. Winner of the Grand Jury prize at the Venice Film Festival, Sembène’s adaptation of his own novella set a new course for African cinema: radical, anti-colonial and proudly independent in its methods.