As part of its 27th edition (October 17-21, 2023), Ecrans Noirs Film Festival, Central Africa’s most important film festival) will be holding an international colloquium celebrating the centenary of Ousmane Sembene (1923-2023). Please see the call for papers below. 

THEME: OUSMANE SEMBENE AND THE CINEMA AS EVENING SCHOOL: SIGNIFICANCE, IMPACT, LEGACIES, AND CONTEMPORARY RELEVANCE

The celebration of the centenary of the birth of Ousmane Sembene (1923/2023), also known as the “Father of African Cinema” offers us a unique opportunity to revisit the incommensurable legacy of this legendary filmmaker and man of culture. Ousmane Sembene was many things at once: a master of cinema, an inventor of forms, an artist of the people, a relentless critic of systems and institutions that hold humans in subjection, and an incomparable bard of African humanism. Among other things, he understood the cinema as a way for the filmmaker to be in conversation with his people; as a critical conscience of a society, a people and a culture; as a means to reveal the gaps and chiasms between those who govern and those who are governed; as a way of holding elites accountable; and, as an instrument through which he could offer horizons of possibilities through struggle. 

100 years after his birth and 16 years after his passing, how should we revisit his work? Re-appropriate his messages? Re-invest the roads he took? How could we turn Sembene into a partner of our struggles today? What kind of challenges did Sembene leave to us in order to realize his vision of a free, independent, sovereign, united, prosperous and accountable Africa? 

To address these multiple and complex questions, this year’s colloquium on the centenary of Ousmane Sembene will be placed under the umbrella of one of his most evocative concepts, that of “the cinema as evening school.”  We will interrogate this concept/metaphor as well as put it in conversation with Sembene’s own cinema, reflect on its potential impact on and significance for the history of African cinema, and its continued relevance for contemporary and emerging African film practice and beyond. 

We are inviting proposals in French or English that would address some of the following questions  

	What did Sembene means by “the cinema as an evening school?”

	What relationships between the filmmaker, the film, the screen and the spectator does this concept evoke? 


	What does this concept entail in terms of transmission, exchange, dialogue, contestation, activation with transformation as potential horizon?

	 How does this concept negotiate the relationship between cinema as entertainment and escape, and cinema as a pedagogic project? 

	What images of the spectator does ‘the cinema as an evening school’ conjure? What does it mean to transform the ‘spectator as consumer/recipient’ of cinematic spectacle into the ‘spectator as citizen/agent’ in transforming reality?’

	How may we revisit the entire oeuvre of Sembene through the lens of the concept/metaphor of the ‘cinema as an evening school? What would such a concept add to our understanding of the themes and the forms of the cinema of Ousmane Sembene?

	How does Sembene work out this concept in his individual films? Borom Sarret, La Noire de, Mandabi, Emitai, Xala, Ceddo, Camp de Thiarroye, Guelwaar, Faat Kine, Moolaade? Other films? Has ‘the cinema as an evening school’ metaphor been productive for Sembene throughout his work? In what ways might it have hindered his artistic and political project? 

	To what extent could the “cinema as evening school” metaphor be extended to the large body of work that constitutes “African cinema (s)? What has been the influence of ‘the cinema as evening school’ metaphor in the history of African cinema? In what ways has it oriented African cinema in particular directions? Were these always productive? 

	What filmmakers and films outside of Sembene(’s) have most closely embraced the notion of ‘cinema as evening school?’ In what ways? What filmmakers have sought to distance themselves from the said concept? In what ways?

	Is ‘the cinema as evening school’ still useful as a concept in our characterization of contemporary and new directions in African cinema? To what extent does it survive in today’s African cinema? 

	Should the metaphor/concept be considered a thing of the past or should it still hold sway on contemporary African cinema ranging from Afrofuturist work to genre cinema, television series, and various forms and modalities of popular and commercial cinema? cinema? Is there a place for ‘the cinema as evening school’ metaphor in the age of streaming?

	How relevant is Ousmane Sembene’s cinema to contemporary generations of African filmmakers? What could contemporary generations of African filmmakers do with the legacy of the cinema of Ousmane Sembene? 

Submission Procedures: Proposals in English or French should be sent by September 7, 2023, to the following address: [log in to unmask] They must include a title and an abstract (250 words) and a brief bio (150 words). 

Accommodation and meals will be covered for participants whose proposals have been selected. 

The conference advisory board includes Mbye Cham (Howard University), Sada Niang (University of Victoria), Sheila Petty (University of Regina), Alexie Tcheuyap (University of Toronto), Samba Gadjigo (Mount Holyoke College), Ute Fendler (University of Bayreuth), Phil Rosen (Brown University).  

Conference Conveners: Aboubakar Sanogo (Carleton University), Marie Nadege Tsogo (Bayreuth University, Boris Calvin Yadia (Bamenda University), Narcisse Wandji (Dschang University), Bassek Ba Kobhio (Delegate General, Festival Ecrans Noirs)

For more information, please contact  [log in to unmask]

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