Samba Gadjigo, a professor of French at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts, is the co-director of the new film Sembene. The film, which will be screened at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, is a documentary on the life of the late Ousmane Sembene, the first African to make films in Africa about Africans.
Professor Gadjigo has focused his research over the last 20 years on Sembene’s work. He joined the faculty at Mount Holyoke in 1986 and brought Sembene to lecture at the college in 1989. “After that visit, I became his biographer, his agent, his friend and confidante, and his adoptive son.” Gadjigo wrote two books on Sembene and shot video throughout the world while traveling with Sembene.
Dr. Gadjigo holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Dakar in Senegal. He earned a Ph.D. at the University of Illinois.
A trailer for the film can be seen below.
