A Senegalese woman accompanies her French employers to France after the country’s independence, but is sorely disappointed when she is treated as a mere house servant, or worse, as an exotic object for the entertainment of the family’s white house guests. Africa’s most famous director/novelist, Ousmane Sembène, directed his first feature film (and the continent’s first) after attending film school in Moscow. As a left-wing novelist, Sembène is interested in exposing the contradictions of colonialism, and the often false hopes of its victims to escape the grinding poverty of their homelands.
DCP, b&w, 65 min. Director: Ousmane Sembène. Les Actualités Françaises. Producer: André Swoboda. Scriptwriter: Ousmane Sembène. Cinematographer: Christian Lacoste. Cast: Mbissine Thérèse Diop, Anne-Marie Jelinek, Robert Fontaine.
