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Film Club is BACK for July and in honour of the African Film Festival 2024, playing exclusively at the Capitol July 18-28, we will be playing the 4K restoration of one of the best and most important of all African films, from one of it's greatest directors - Ousemene Sembène's seminal masterpiece MANDABI!Often described as the 'Father of African Film', Senegalese auteur Sembène was a director of stridently political cinema, the first of his continent to achieve international recognition. His first film, BLACK GIRL, was included in Sight & Sound's recent list of the greatest films of all time - but an equal case can be made for MANDABI, an urgent and profoundly timely examination of capitalism, bureaucracy and the fragility of the human ego. The film tells the story of a Senegalese family man (Makhouredia Gueye) who receives a money order from a nephew in France, only to find the stability of his life thrown into chaos by the corruption, greed and avarice of the society around him.
Said critic Richard Brody: ‘Born and raised in what is now Senegal, Sembène moved to France in 1947 and worked as a manual laborer, getting involved in labor-union activism and in the Communist Party. He became a writer, publishing the first of many novels in 1956. Even after turning his attention to movies, in the nineteen-sixties, he continued to write fiction, often adapting his novels and stories for the screen. This literary heritage is a crucial aspect both of his greatness and of his somewhat marginal status in film history… in “Mandabi,” from 1968, the [director] ranged widely through private and public settings in the capital city of Dakar to satirize corruption born of misrule. Unredressed inequality is reflected in cultural conflict between the Francophone élite, in Euro-style suits, and the Wolof-speaking masses. Sembène looks ruefully yet tenderly at the ruses and wiles of the poor, whose desperate struggles—with the authorities and with one another—distract them from political revolt.’
Restored in glorious 4K, witness the birth of African cinema with MANDABI, presented in association with the African Film Festival 2024. Tickets $10 as always.
Find more on the AFF here: https://africanfilmfestivalnz.org.nz/
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
The Capitol Cinema, 610 Dominion Rd, Mount Eden, Auckland 1041, New Zealand,Auckland, New Zealand
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