Director Ousmane Sembene (1923-2007)
As a third year film student at NYU Grad Film, I designed an independent study course in African Cinema. My syllabus comprised readings and films, a long list of directors from Ousmane Sembene to Djibril Diop Mambety and Mahamet Saleh Haroun. (View my African Cinema syllabus.)
Thankfully, women's empowerment has long been a staple theme in the work of renowned African directors (and other proponents of Third World cinema) which meant I did not have to compromise my core African feminist values in order to complete the course.
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