Metrograph

Sembène adapted one of his own short stories for his directorial debut, the winner of the Prix Jean Vigo and by many reckonings the film that announced sub-Saharan African cinema to the wider world. Dreaming of a new life in France, Senegalese housemaid Diouana (Mbissine Thérèse Diop) follows her employers from Dakar to their home in the Antibes, where she finds herself treated with a new tone of high-handed authority, and slowly, silently—save for what we hear of her inner life via French-language voiceover—succumbs to the stultifying effects of deepening depression.

Distributor: Janus Films

Introduction by Thomas Dodman, associate professor of French at Columbia University, on Saturday, April 11th