A Trio of Short Films

Programme

Africa on Seine (Afrique-sur-Seine)

Senegal | 1955 | dir Paulin Soumanou Vieyra and Mamadou Sarr Senegal, with Paul Soumanou Vieyra, Marpessa Dawn, Phillips Mory | in French with English subtitles | 21 mins

Is Africa in Africa, on the banks of the Seine or in the Latin Quarter? Bittersweet questions from a generation of artists and students in search of their civilization, their culture, their future. This film, the first attempt by African filmmakers, was produced under the patronage of the Ethnographic Film Committee of the Musée de l’Homme.

Cabascabo

Niger |1969 | Dir Oumarou Ganda, with Oumarou Ganda, Zalika Souley, Balarabi | in Zarma with English Subtitles | 45 mins

An African rifleman from the French expeditionary force in Indochina returns to Niger, demobilized, rich. He is surrounded, celebrated. Generous, he will squander his money and will soon be abandoned by all his friends. One of the cult films of American filmmakers and cinema teachers. Oumarou Ganda’s response to the film “Moi, un noir” by Jean Rouch, in which he played his own role, that of a Senegalese rifleman enlisted in the Indochina war.

Lamb -The Fight

Senegal | 1963 | Dir Paulin Vieyra, with Ousmane Sembene | in Wolof and French with English subtitles | 18 mins

Traditional wrestling, which is called Lamb in Wolof and reminiscent of Greco-Roman wrestling, is a very popular national sport in Senegal. It has special and very strict rules. The wrestlers train on the beach…