Cinema of Senegal

The cinema of Senegal is a relatively small film industry which experienced its prime from the 1960s through to the early 1980s, but has since declined to less than five feature films produced in the last ten years.

The first Senegalese film, Paulin Vieyra's L’Afrique sur Seine, was produced in 1955. Vieyra would follow up with further short films L’Afrique à Moscou (1957), Le Niger aujourd’hui (1958), Les présidents Senghor et Modibo Keita, Avec les Africaines à Vienne and "Présence Africaine" à Rome (1959) and Indépendance du Cameroun, Togo, Congo, Madagascar (1960), a documentary covering the independence of these countries.

However it was not until the Independence of Senegal itself that the industry began to develop. Writer Ousmane Sembène, became one of the country's leading directors during this period by turning many of his short stories into films. He was particularly concerned with social change, and saw film as a way of reaching a wider audience. In 1963, Sembène produced his first film, a 20-minute short called Barom Sarret (The Wagoner). The film is often considered the first film ever made in Africa by a Black African and illustrates the poverty stricken life that was still prevalent in Senegal after independence by following the daily routine of a cab driver.

In 1964 he made another short entitled Niaye. In 1966 he produced his first and Senegal's first feature film, La Noire de..., based on one of his own short stories; and it also became the first feature film ever released by a sub-Saharan African director. Though only 60 minutes long, the French-language film won him the Prix Jean Vigo, bringing immediate international attention to both film in Senegal and African cinema generally. Sembène followed this success with the 1968 Mandabi, achieving his goal of producing a film in his native Wolof language.

Through the 1970s the industry grew, with Sembène making a film in the Diola language and French entitled Emitaï in 1971. Director Djibril Diop Mambéty released a number of films during this period with deep social meaning and representation. Like many of his contemporaries, Djibril Diop Mambéty used the cinematic medium to comment on political and social conditions in Africa, and like Sembène his films were unconventional, surrealist, fast-paced, with social realist narratives.

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