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MOOLADE |
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Director:
Ousmane Sembene
Screenplay: Ousmane Sembene
Cast:
Collé Ardo Gallo Sy: Fatoumata Coulibaly
Hadjatou: Maïmouna Diarra
Amasatou: Salimata Traoré
Mercenaire: Dominique Zeïda
Doyenne des exciseuse: Mah Compaoré
Alima Ba: Aminata Dao
Awards:
Best Film Award, Un Certain Regard - Cannes Film Festival
(2004)
Running time: 134
Year of production: Senegal - 2004
Language: Jula & French
Rating: Not rated (general public)
Gauge: 35mm (color)
Distributor: New Yorker Films
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“While
he does not minimize pain and cruelty, neither does Mr.
Sembene traffic in harshness or despair. And while this
film is troubling, it is also infused with a remarkable
buoyancy of spirit… a rousingly political film.”
A.O. Scott, The New York Times |
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In Mooladé,
Ousmane Sembene continues to provoke his audience and reiterates
the strong feminist consciousness that marked his previous
film, Faat Kiné. This time, he takes on the explosive
issue of female circumcision, a practice still common in Africa.
Set in a small African village, four young girls face a ritual
purification that involves genital mutilation. They flee to
the house of Collé Ardo Gallo Sy, a strong-willed woman
who once managed to shield her teenage daughter from circumcision.
Collé invokes the time-honored custom of “mooladé”
(sanctuary) to protect the fugitives, creating a conflict
in the community and forcing every villager to take sides.
Tensions quickly mount between village traditionalists (male
and female) and Collé, endangering the prospective
marriage of her own daughter to the heir of the tribal throne.
Sembene sets the action amidst a colorful, vibrant tapestry
of village life and expands the narrative well beyond the
bounds of straightforward, socially-conscious realism, employing
an imaginative array of emblematic metaphors, mythic overtones
and musical numbers. Mooladé is the second of a trilogy
of films about heroism in daily life and, to use Sembene’s
own words, about the ‘underground struggle’ of
people which is often overlooked by their governments and
the rest of world.
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| PHOTO New
Yorker Films |
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