Three Revolutionary Films by Ousmane Sembène comes to Blu-ray on 3 June. Searing critiques of colonialism, political corruption, patriarchal arrogance, and religious indoctrination, this collection includes the films Emitaï, Xala and Ceddo.
Following on 17 June comes Richard Linklater's Slacker, one of the key films of the American independent film movement of the 1990s.
THREE REVOLUTIONARY FILMS BY OUSMANE SEMBÈNE | Blu-ray | 3 June 2024
Having blazed a trail for African filmmakers to tell their own stories on-screen, Senegalese auteur Ousmane Sembène took his career-long project—to unlock cinema’s potential as a vehicle for social change—in increasingly urgent and provocative directions in the 1970s. Searing critiques of colonialism, political corruption, patriarchal arrogance, and religious indoctrination, his three features from this decade—the radical call to resistance Emitaï, the wickedly subversive satire Xala, and the controversial historical epic Ceddo—confirmed his standing as a fearless truth-teller for whom the camera was the ultimate weapon in the fight against oppression in all its forms.
Emitaï (1971)
With revolutionary outrage, Ousmane Sembène chronicles a period during World War II when French colonial forces in Senegal conscripted young men of the Diola people and attempted to seize rice stores for soldiers back in Europe. As the tribe's patriarchal leaders pray and make sacrifices to their gods, the women in the community refuse to yield their harvests, incurring the French army's wrath. With a deep understanding of the oppressive forces that have shaped Senegalese history, Emitaï explores the strains that colonialism places upon cultural traditions and, in the process, discovers a people's hidden reserves of rebellion and dignity.
Xala (1975)
An adaptation of Ousmane Sembène's own 1973 novel, Xala is an hilarious, caustic satire of political corruption under an inept patriarchy. On the night of his wedding to his third bride, government official El Hadji (Thierno Leye) is rendered impotent and begins to suspect that one of his other wives has placed a curse on him. After seeking a cure from a local marabout, El Hadji must face the possibility that he deserves the infliction for his part in embezzling public funds and for helping to keep Senegal under French control. Adeptly combining elements of African folklore and popular cinema, Sembène indicts the hubris, entitlement, and opportunism of male authority figures.
Ceddo (1977)
In precolonial Senegal, members of the Ceddo (or "outsiders") kidnap Princess Dior Yacine (Tabata Ndiaye) after her father, the king, pledges loyalty to an ascendant Islamic faction that plans to convert the entire clan to its faith. Attempts to recapture her fail, provoking further division and eventual war between the animistic Ceddo and the fundamentalist Muslims, with Christian missionaries and slave traders from Europe also playing a role in the conflict. Banned in Senegal upon its release, Ceddo is an ambitious, multilayered epic that explores the combustible tensions among ancient tradition, religious colonization, political expediency, and individual freedom.
THREE-DISC SPECIAL EDITION BLU-RAY FEATURES:
- New 4K digital restorations of all three films, with uncompressed monaural soundtracks
- New conversation between Mahen Bonetti, founder and executive director of the African Film Festival, and writer Amy Sall
- The Making of Ceddo, a 1981 documentary by Paulin Soumanou Vieyra
- New English subtitle translations
- PLUS: An essay by film scholar Yasmina Price
SLAKER (1990) | Blu-ray | 17 June 2024
Slacker, directed by Richard Linklater, presents a day in the life of a loose-knit Austin, Texas, subculture populated by eccentric and overeducated young people. Shooting on 16 mm for a mere $23,000, writer-producer-director Linklater and his crew of friends threw out any idea of a traditional plot, choosing instead to create a tapestry of over a hundred characters, each as compelling as the last. Slacker is a prescient look at an emerging generation of aggressive nonparticipants, and one of the key films of the American independent film movement of the 1990s.
DIRECTOR-APPROVED BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES:
- New, restored high-definition digital film transfer, supervised by director Richard Linklater and director of photography Lee Daniel, with 2.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
- Three audio commentaries, featuring Linklater and members of the cast and crew
- It's Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books (1988), Linklater's first full-length feature, with commentary by the director
- Woodshock, a 1985 16 mm short by Linklater and Daniel
- Casting tapes featuring select "auditions" from the more-than-100-member cast
- Deleted scenes and alternate takes
- Footage from the Slacker tenth-anniversary reunion
- Early film treatment
- Home movies
- Ten-minute trailer for a 2005 documentary about the landmark Austin café Les Amis
- Original theatrical trailer
- English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- PLUS: An essay by author and filmmaker John Pierson, an introduction to It's Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books by director Monte Hellman, an essay by Michael Barker, reviews by critics Ron Rosenbaum and Chris Walters, and production notes by Linklater
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