For the late Senegalese director Ousmane Sembène, cinema was always an opportunity for dialogue with the audience. In this essay, Henry Roberts explores the aesthetics and political power of Sembène's cinematic oeuvre.
"Through his filmmaking and overall cinematic framework, Sembène realized the dream of a unified and borderless Africa which its political leaders have yet to produce." Matene Toure revisits Ousmane Sembène's 1988 film Camp de Thiaroye, highlighting his life's ambition of inspiring revolutionary action through film.
Recent years have seen a boom in cinematic fantasies of the uber-wealthy where viewers are treated to mass spectacles of excess. But can any of them ever match the reality of the new elite, which is always dumber, more tasteless, and yet still more morally grotty than fiction could allow?
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