'Soleil Ô' Screening | Ab-Anbar Archive Projections

Soleil Ô
Directed by Med Hondo, 1970, Mauritania/France, 98 min, French and Hassaniya Arabic with English subtitles
Introduced by Ehsan Khoshbakht
Soleil Ô is a polyvocal film; it speaks of Blackness, of whiteness and white supremacy, of Africa and Europe, of the diasporic, the interracial, the decolonial, the tricontinental, the emancipatory. It apprehends Africa as not just a continent but a global entity. In the director’s own words, “I would like people to take my images and sound as participating in the development of African cinema . . . as participating in the history and historicity of Africa. It is Africa that begot me, that gave me the strength to continue.” But the film also belongs in the canons of global Black/Afro-diasporic cinema, of Third Cinema, and of avant-garde cinema, as well as being an exemplary form of genuinely independent filmmaking. It is, simply put, a classic of the cinema tout court. – Aboubakar Sanogo

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