Arts & Culture
‘Father of African Cinema’ Ousmane Sembène restores to 4K MANDABI: UK Release 11 June 2021
11 June 2021
Cinemas |
STUDIOCANAL is thrilled to debut the official trailer for MANDABI, the 4K restoration of Ousmane Sembène’s trailblazing Senegalese classic which is released for the first time in the UK
Directed, written and produced by the legendary, ‘father of African cinema’ Ousmane Sembène, the film was originally made in 1968 where it won the Special Jury Prize at Venice Film Festival.
The second feature by Sembène was the first movie ever made in the Wolof language—a major step toward the realisation of the trailblazing Senegalese filmmaker’s dream of creating a cinema by, about, and for Africans.
One of his most coruscatingly funny and indignant films, Mandabi—an adaptation of a novella by the director himself—is a bitterly ironic depiction of a society scarred by colonialism and plagued by corruption, greed, and poverty.
After jobless Ibrahima Dieng receives a money order for 25,000 francs from a nephew who works in Paris, news of his windfall quickly spreads among his neighbors, who flock to him for loans even as he finds his attempts to cash the order stymied in a maze of bureaucracy, and new troubles rain down on his head.
MANDABI is in cinemas June 11, available on Blu-ray, DVD and Digital from June 28 2021.