Rise of a Nation: An Exploration of Vieyra's Vision for Senegal through Une nation est née

Paulin Soumanou Vieyras vision for African cinema was born out of the lack of proper representation for Africans in Western cinema. Thus, his films explore narratives of Africans on the big screen, those whose roles, as Vieyra himself writes in Le cinéma au Sénégal (1983), had previously been relega...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inBlack camera : the newsletter of the Black Film Center/Archives Vol. 13; no. 2; pp. 338 - 354
Main Author Lomeli, Timothy
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Bloomington Indiana University Press 01.04.2022
Subjects
Actors
African history
Audiences
Colonialism
Cultural heritage
Motion picture directors & producers
Motion pictures
National identity
Novels
Postcolonialism
Vieyra, Paulin Soumanou
Senegal
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Summary:Paulin Soumanou Vieyras vision for African cinema was born out of the lack of proper representation for Africans in Western cinema. Thus, his films explore narratives of Africans on the big screen, those whose roles, as Vieyra himself writes in Le cinéma au Sénégal (1983), had previously been relegated to that of "Y a bon Banania," or that of the educated and reformed savage (52). One of his films that showcases the plurality and hybridity of Africans is Une nation est née (1961). The film, created on the backdrop of the Senegalese Independence Day celebration, is a journey through the forgotten history of the peoples of the newly formed nation, from precolonial times to the fight for independence. This film relies on the novel LAventure Ambiguě, by Cheikh Hamidou Kane, to structure and tell its story, but it also goes beyond Kanes work to envision the future of Senegal, in order to create a new history of Senegal and work to construct a national identity.
ISSN:1536-3155
1947-4237
DOI:10.2979/blackcamera.13.2.18.