Having been officially selected for over 15 film festivals, including the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, and the Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, France, French Professor Samba Gadjigo’s film Sembène! is doing very well. This week I sat down with Professor Gadjigo to learn more about the man behind the movie and his inspiration for the film.
Sembène!, which took seven years to make, tells the story of Ousmane Sembène, an award winning Senegalese filmmaker, author, and the “Father of African Film.” Sembène had humble roots: he was the son of a fisherman, and, at the age of 14, was expelled from school and became a laborer in Dakar. Post World War 2, he moved to Marseilles, France and became a dockworker, while studying and reading whenever he could. He published his first poems in 1956, and published several novels afterwards. Sembène realized that, to reach the African people and tell stories of Africa, one must use cinema, and in 1963, he made his first film. He wanted to use his films not only to tell African people the stories of their motherland, but to create social change and fuel revolutions.
Professor Gadjigo, the official biographer of the late filmmaker and the narrator of the film, teamed up with longtime friend, Jason Silverman, a writer, film producer, and art house programmer in Santa Fe, New Mexico, to turn his idea into a feature film. Gadjigo says he felt compelled to make Sembène! for many reasons. He was always fascinated by storytelling, having been raised by his grandmother, a wonderful storyteller, in a small village in eastern Senegal. He never wanted to be a filmmaker, however; he began his life wanting to be a train conductor, as trains symbolized mobility and freedom to the children of his village, but, by 18, realized that he wanted to teach, inspired by a high school philosophy teacher. He attended the University of Dakar and L’École Normale Supérieure, received his PhD from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and has been teaching at Mount Holyoke since 1986.
Gadjigo explains that the film is about “the transformative power of storytelling and the very important role that creative artists can play in society.” Professor Gadjigo believes that Ousmane Sembène embodies these ideas. Gadjigo calls him “a freedom fighter who uses the camera as his weapon” to fight inequality and injustice. In addition, Gadjigo’s life was completely changed by Sembène’s work.
Growing up, all Gadjigo wanted, having been influenced by the French education system implemented in Senegal, was to become a white Frenchman. After reading Sembène’s God’s Bits of Wood at age 17, he completely changed his mind and became very proud of who he was. “Yes, I am no better than anyone else,” he says. “But nobody else is better than me.” Sembène was a driving force for Professor Gadjigo to be able to move through his life with confidence, and the novel remains one of his favorite books.
Gadjigo says that by making this film, he wanted to inspire the younger generations to make films with purpose. He says that you can’t just pick up a camera and film something simply for entertainment, fame, or money. You must make social change. And he feels that, by making this film, he is a living example. He’s also had the opportunity to premiere the film all over the world and he hopes that he can impact as many young filmmakers as possible. The film has had a life of it’s own, premiering not only here at Mount Holyoke, but also in South Africa, India, and, soon, in Egypt and Madagascar.
His favorite premiere? “Durban, South Africa, because it’s a story I want to share with the world, but primarily with Africans, because…we were robbed of our stories. We got silenced and Sembène gave us back our stories.” He also enjoyed premiering it here at Mount Holyoke, because it gave him the opportunity, not only to share his work with his students, but also because he was able to dedicate the film to all the black students on college campuses fighting injustice.
Now that the film is complete, Gadjigo isn’t ready to make another film yet. He has a few ideas, but he says he has made the film that he wanted to make, and that the team is completely satisfied with the film and its impact. He is now focusing on teaching, which he has always loved, and living a balanced life. His favorite film? “Mine!”
If you want to learn more from Gadjigo, next semester he’s teaching French 219, Introduction to the French Speaking World, and French 341, Ousmane Sembène: The Work of a Militant Artist, a course dedicated to the life and work of Ousmane Sembène. Having spent this semester learning about Francophone Africa with Professor Gadjigo, I can say with confidence that not only is he incredibly knowledgeable about his subject matter, but his passion shines through when he’s teaching!