Ousmane Sembène
Writer and filmmaker (1923 – 2007)
Family : Place of birth : Ziguinchor ; Date of birth : 1 January 1923
Education : He attended the Escale school from the age of eight, then schools in Marsassoum and Dakar, and worked as a mechanic and a mason. A tirailleur during the Second World War, he was a docker in Marseille for about ten years, where he joined the CGT and the French Communist Party around 1950. He then studied cinema in Moscow, at the Gorky studio, in 1962.
Action : A novelist (Le Docker noir, 1956; God’s Bits of Wood, 1960), he became the pioneer of African cinema: Borom Sarret (1963), La Noire de… (1966), Ceddo (1977), Moolaadé (2003). La Noire de… won the Jean Vigo Prize; he also directed Le Mandat (1968) and Camp de Thiaroye (1987).
Legacy : He died in Dakar on 9 June 2007 and rests in the Muslim cemetery of Yoff. He is regarded as the “father of African cinema”. He received the Carrosse d’Or in 2005 and was made an Officer of the Légion d’honneur in 2006.