Souleymane Cissé (film director)

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Souleymane Cissé
Souleymane Cissé.jpg
Souleymane Cissé in 2009
Born (1940-04-21) April 21, 1940 (age 81)
OccupationFilm director, screenwriter

Souleymane Cissé (born April 21, 1940) is a Malian film director.

Biography[]

Born in Bamako and raised in a Muslim family, Souleymane Cissé was a passionate cinephile from childhood. He attended secondary school in Dakar and returned to Mali in 1960 after national independence.[1]

His film career began as an assistant projectionist for a documentary on the arrest of Patrice Lumumba. This triggered his desire to create films of his own, and he obtained a scholarship at the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography,[2] the Moscow school of Cinema and Television.

In 1970 he returned to Mali, and joined the Ministry of Information as a cameraman, where he produced documentaries and short films. Two years later, he produced his first medium-length film, Cinq jours d’une vie (Five Days in a Life), which tells the story of a young man who drops out of a Qur'anic school and becomes a petty thief living on the street. Cinq Jours premiered at the Carthage Film Festival.

In 1974, Cissé produced his first full-length film in the Bambara language, Den muso (The Girl), the story of a young mute girl who has been raped. The girl becomes pregnant, and is rejected both by her family and by the child's father. Den Muso was banned by the Malian Minister of Culture, and Cissé was arrested and jailed for having accepted French funding.

Four years later, Cissé produced Baara (Work),[3] which received the Yenenga's Talon prize at Fespaco in 1979. In 1982, he produced Finyé (Wind), which tells the story of dissatisfied Malian youth rising up against the establishment. This earned him his second Yenenga's Talon, at 1983's Fespaco.

Between 1984 and 1987, he produced Yeelen (Light), a coming-of-age film which won the Jury Prize at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival.[4]

In 1995, he produced Waati (Time) which competed for the Palme d'Or at the 1995 Cannes Film Festival.[5]

In 2009, he filmed a comedy that talks about polygamy, inspired by his father, when he, his eight brothers, and his sister should leave their house in 1988. In the film, O Ka  (Our House), he reminded the legal battle of his sisters when they were expelled from their house in Bamako.[1]

Cissé is president of UCECAO, the Union of Creators and Entrepreneurs of Cinema and Audiovisual Arts of Western Africa. His younger brother is film director Alioune Ifra Ndiaye.[6]

Filmography[]

References[]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b "Souleymane Cissé, le doyen du cinéma africain à Cannes". RFI (in French). 2015-05-12. Retrieved 2021-08-13.
  2. ^ "Souleymane CISSE". Festival de Cannes 2021 (in French). Retrieved 2021-08-13.
  3. ^ "Barra". African Film Festival. 2012.
  4. ^ "Festival de Cannes: Yeelen". festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 2009-07-19.
  5. ^ "Festival de Cannes: Waati". festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 2009-09-05.
  6. ^ Cessou, Sabine (11 September 2017). "Alioune Ifra Ndiaye : de la scène à l'engagement politique". Afrique Magazine (in French). Retrieved 21 November 2020.

External links[]

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