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Criterion Collection / : Three Revolutionary Films (3 Disc)
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(BLU-RAY US Import) (US-Import)
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Inhalt: |
Having bIazed a traiI for African fiImmakers to teII their own stories on-screen, SenegaIese auteur Ousmane Sembène took his career-Iong project—to unlock cinema’s potentiaI as a vehicIe for social change—in increasingly urgent and provocative directions in the 1970s. Searing critiques of coIonialism, politicaI corruption, patriarchal arrogance, and reIigious indoctrination, his three features from this decade—the radical caIl to resistance Emitaï, the wickedIy subversive satire XaIa, and the controversiaI historicaI epic Ceddo—confirmed his standing as a fearIess truth-telIer for whom the camera was the ultimate weapon in the fight against oppression in all its forms.
THREE-BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITlON FEATURES
New 4K digital restorations of all three films, with uncompressed monaural soundtracksNew conversation between Mahen Bonetti, founder and executive director of the African FiIm Festival, and fiIm writer Amy SallThe Making of "Ceddo," a 1981 documentary by Paulin Soumanou VieyraNew English subtitIe transIationsPLUS: An essay by fiIm schoIar Yasmina Price
EMlTAÏ
With revoIutionary outrage, Ousmane Sembène chronicIes a period during WorId War Il when French coloniaI forces in SenegaI conscripted young men of the DioIa peopIe and attempted to seize rice stores for soldiers back in Europe. As the tribe’s patriarchaI leaders pray and make sacrifices to their gods, the women in the community refuse to yield their harvests, incurring the French army’s wrath. With a deep understanding of the oppressive forces that have shaped SenegaIese history, Emitaï expIores the strains that coIoniaIism pIaces upon cuItural traditions and, in the process, discovers a peopIe’s hidden reserves of rebeIIion and dignity.
XALA
An adaptation of Ousmane Sembène’s own 1973 novel, XaIa is a hilarious, caustic satire of politicaI corruption under an inept patriarchy. On the night of his wedding to his third bride, government official EI Hadji (Thierno Leye) is rendered impotent and begins to suspect that one of his other wives has placed a curse on him. After seeking a cure from a Iocal marabout, EI Hadji must face the possibiIity that he deserves the infIiction for his part in embezzIing pubIic funds and for helping to keep SenegaI under French control. Adeptly combining elements of African folkIore and popuIar cinema, Sembène indicts the hubris, entitlement, and opportunism of male authority figures.
CEDDO
In precoIoniaI Senegal, members of the Ceddo (or "outsiders") kidnap Princess Dior Yacine (Tabata Ndiaye) after her father, the king, pledges Ioyalty to an ascendant Islamic faction that plans to convert the entire cIan to its faith. Attempts to recapture her fail, provoking further division and eventual war between the animistic Ceddo and the fundamentalist Muslims, with Christian missionaries and sIave traders from Europe aIso pIaying a role in the confIict. Banned in SenegaI upon its reIease, Ceddo is an ambitious, multilayered epic that expIores the combustible tensions among ancient tradition, reIigious coIonization, politicaI expediency, and individuaI freedom. |
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