Guncotton - A personal look at films

This is a film by Ousmane Sembene, a Senegalese film director, acknowledged as "The father of African Cinema". I have to confess that I had never heard of this filmmaker before and that I owe this discovery to London NFT's June 2006 retrospective dedicated to Mr. Sembene's work. During that month, the National Film Theatre showed some of his most celebrated movies, such as Black Girl, Xala and the aforementioned Moolaade'.


I would explain in more detail Mr. Sembene's filmography and the related activities programmed by the NFT but, as this respectable institution already dedicates considerable efforts to provide a more than decent overview of its programmes and retrospectives, I don't think I could add anything of relevance here. Furthermore, I guess that copying and pasting the contents of their website in this blog would be slightly cheeky.

So, for further - and much better - information on Ousmane Sembene and his films, please see: http://www.bfi.org.uk/showing/nft/sembene/

Moolade' deals with the subject of female genital mutilation and how it affects women, both from a healthcare and social point of view. Wait, wait! Before you decide to switch to the "50 greatest moments in Sport" blog, please let me say that the film is not gory or exploitative at all. In fact, is very much the opposite: an acute analysis of the right to keep one's dignity against the forces of ignorance disguised as timeless traditions and religious righteousness. All in the shape of an amiable account of everyday life in a Senegalese village. The main character is Ma Colle', a woman that shelters four little girls that have fled the excision ritual (This is called "Purification"). The girls have come to her because they know that Colle' successfully refused to have her only daughter "cut". Having already lost two children, due to her inability to give birth normally as a consequence of her own genital mutilation, Colle' accepts to protect them without hesitation. She ties a multicoloured rope at the entrance of her home, thus indicating that she has decided to grant the girls Sanctuary (the Moolaade' of the title). Therefore, no one should dare to enter the house to reclaim the girls. This is not at unimpregnable boundary, however. Little children and animals can cross it, but not the elders of the village or the scary excision priestesses, who want to force Colle' into giving up the girls and restore the "natural" order of things. I will not tell the rest of the story as the movie is an enjoyable experience in itself.