Black Girl

Diouana follows a French couple from Dakar to Southern France to work as a nanny for their children. She is awaiting the trip to France with great excitement, but the excitement quickly turns sour when she finds out that she is nothing more than a housekeeper. Diouana is constantly reminded about the class difference between Post-colonial West Africa and the French Riviera. She is feeling reduced to a mere object, like one of the “authentic” masks decorating the French couple’s walls. This culminates in several confrontations between Diouana and her madam. Sembène uses simple and beautiful symbolism, like the mask that constantly reappears throughout the movie in different shapes. The part of the story taking place in France is always happening indoors, and we get the same claustrophobic feeling as Diouana, as she is not allowed to go outside.

Sembène is inspired by French cinema, and spent most of his adolescent in Marseilles. His time at Gorky Film Studios in Moscow is also recognisable by the slow flowing movie language of Soviet cinema. This is the first African feature film by an African director. It's been dubbed to French in post-production, but Sembène somehow manages to use this to his advantage. The entire movie is shot during 20 days on only $20.000, using a 16mm camera brought back from Soviet. The film itself consists of left-overs from film-reels sent to him by his French friends. All the actors and the production team are family and friends. The fantastic soundtrack is also worth a mention. From French barrelhouse piano in the French scenes, to Lalo Keba Dramé in the Senegalese scenes. Sembène was awarded Prix Jean Vigo for best feature film.

CREDITS: Restored by The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project in collaboration with the Sembène Estate, Institut National de l’Audiovisuel, INA, Eclair laboratories and Centre National de Cinématographie. Restoration carried out at Cineteca di Bologna/L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory.

Ousmane Sembène was born 1923 in Ziguenchor, Senegal. He is the first African film director to achieve international recognition. He remains a major figure in the post-colonial African cinema. Black Girl, based on one of his own stories by the same name, is his first feature film. Like Emitaï (1971) and Xala (1975) he touches on subjects like the new political and social landscape of post-colonial Africa. The documentary Sembene! (2015) is screened at Films From the South 2015, and should not be missed.