24th Annual Cascade Festival of African Films

FAAT KINE

Directed by Ousmane Sembène

Senegal, 2000 , 110 min.

Ousmane Sembène Retrospective with Dr. Amadou Fofana, author of The Films of Ousmane Sembène

Faat Kine represents a late film in the oeuvre of the “Father of African Cinema.” Made when Sembène was 77 years old, it takes the director’s ongoing interest in the liberation and empowerment of African women to a new level. The title heroine is a woman who has found economic and psychological self-sufficiency as the owner/operator of a gas station in the capital city of Dakar. It would be hard to imagine a more unlikely role for a Senegalese woman, and not surprisingly a number of men seek a piece of the action. A political allegory disguised as domestic drama, the film offers a very different vision of the future for Faat Kine and for her family. The film exemplifies the artistic skill and insight into the human comedy that have long distinguished the work of Ousmane Sembène.

In Wolof and French with English subtitles.