Sidney Sokhona

Sidney Sokhona
Born1952
NationalityMauritanian
Occupation(s)filmmaker and politician.

Sidney Sokhona (born 1952) is a Mauritanian filmmaker and politician.

Life

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Sokhona shot his first feature film, Nationality: Immigration, from 1972 to 1975 as an immigrant in Paris. The film hybridised documentary and surreal fiction, with Sokhana himself playing the lead role of an immigrant living through a rent strike in the Rue Riquet.[1]

Sokhona wrote on African cinema for Cahiers du Cinéma, arguing that "Africa was colonized, and so is its cinema", and that African film-makers were beginning "to draw up battle plans for [....] cinematic independence".[2]

Filmography

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  • Nationalité: Immigré [Nationality: Immigration], 1975
  • Safrana ou le droit à la parole [Safrana, or The Right to Speak], 1977

Festivals / Awards

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1976 | 5ème FESPACO | Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso | www.fespaco.bf

  • Prix spécial du jury (exaequo avec Sejnane, d’Abdellatif Ben Ammar, Tunisie)

1975 | Paris, France

  • Prix Georges Sadoul

References

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  1. ^ Sarah Cowan, The Right to Speak, The Paris Review, February 22, 2017.
  2. ^ 'Notre cinéma', Cahiers du cinéma, No. 285, February 1978. Trans. David Wilson as Sidney Sokhona (2000). "Our Cinema". In Jim Hillier; David Wilson; Bérénice Reynaud; Nick Browne (eds.). Cahiers Du Cinéma: Volume Four, 1973-1978 : History, Ideology, Cultural Struggle. Psychology Press. pp. 227–232. ISBN 978-0-415-02988-9.
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