1 - Of Cinematic Representation of Migration and Women: A case of Ousmane Sembene

The first attempt at cinema projection in West Africa dates to 1905 in Dakar where a set of animation strips were screened for the public. Many explorers and adventurers from other countries later made films on Africa with influences such as French cinematheque dominating the format. As Jean Rouch points out, there are two orientations that one sees here: “the incomprehension of a world just glimpsed” and “the barbarity of what is discovered there.” In bringing its significance to effect, (or its absence to effect) African cinema auteur Ousmane Sembene, the Senegalese director, developed a unique relationship to the medium of cinema to express his constant concern around the representations of the African migrant community. 

In this paper, I attempt to trace ‘the protagonist’ of Sembene’s film Black Girl. For his pioneering effort in African cinema (fulfilling the motto, ‘for the Africans, by the Africans’), Sembene’s study of character is nuanced in a way that his contemporary society of the 1960s, in which the film was made, stands double edged. A seemingly straightforward film (almost artless in its narration), Black Girl depicts migrants, colonial powers and women, as both the observers and the observed. Sembene was the first sub-Saharan director who wrote history with this 60-minute feature to offer critical ruminations on adaptation, politics, and voice in the new medium.

Black Girl not only launched Sembene’s career as a filmmaker but also became one of the early examples of African cinematic identity.