Directed by Ousmane Sembène • 1992 • France, Germany, Senegal, United States
Starring Thierno Ndiaye Doss, Mame Ndoumbé Diop, Myriam Niang
“Guelwaar” is the nickname of Pierre Henri Thioune (Thierno Ndiaye), a political radical and agitator whose criticism of Senegal’s reliance on foreign aid ruffles the feathers of the powers-that-be. His suspicious death is followed by a farcical mix-up when his corpse is mistaken for that of another man and accidentally interred in an Islamic cemetery. Guelwaar’s family, led by Europeanized son Barthelemy (Ndiawar Diop), enlists the local police to unearth and then rebury their paterfamilias on Catholic ground, but Muslim resistance sparks a religious conflict and unleashes long held hostilities among townspeople and within the Thioune clan. At once a tragicomic study of social atomization and a hopeful vision of Pan-African solidarity and independence, GUELWAAR is Ousmane Sembène’s master class in interweaving complex storylines and merging disparate stylistic tones.
Up Next in Directed by Ousmane Sembène
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Borom sarret
Directed by Ousmane Sembène • 1963 • Senegal
This groundbreaking short film, which won first prize at the 1963 Touris Film Festival in France, was the directorial debut of Ousmane Sembène.
Restored in 2013 by the Cineteca di Bologna/L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory and Éclair, in association wit...
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Niaye
Directed by Ousmane Sembène • 1964 • Senegal
Starring Sow, Astou Ndiaye, Mame DiaIn this early short film, adapted from his own novella “White Genesis,” Ousmane Sembène offers a portrait of a Senegalese village in decline, where the chief has impregnated his own daughter, a soldier has come bac...
