Guelwaar
Ousmane Sembène
France,
1992
“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 masterclass in interweaving complex storylines and merging disparate stylistic tones.
Latest Releases
-
A celebration of an artist’s life in the purest sense, Ryuichi Sakamoto | Opus is the definitive swan song of one of the world’s greatest musicians.
Neo Sora Japan, 2023
DCP, Blu-ray -
Mauritanian French director Med Hondo’s West Indies: The Fugitive Slaves of Liberty proved a watershed event for African cinema.
Med Hondo Mauritania, 1979
DCP, Blu-ray -
Nestled away in wintry East Anatolia, public-school art teacher Samet (Deniz Celiloğlu) yearns to leave the sleepy village for cosmopolitan Istanbul.
Nuri Bilge Ceylan Turkey, 2023
DCP -
In a career-defining performance, Alain Delon plays Jef Costello, a contract killer with samurai instincts.
Jean-Pierre Melville France, 1967
DCP, Blu-ray, DVD -
Horace Ové’s fiction-film debut marks a watershed in the history of British cinema: the nation’s first feature to be written and directed by a Black filmmaker and the first to focus on the perspective of Black characters.
Horace Ové United Kingdom, 1975
DCP, Blu-ray