On Sembene’s “I myself am the sun”

Fashioning the body is and has always been an act of autonomy-building.

I remember my first introduction to Ousmane Sembène, one of the greatest African thinkers—often referred to as the “Father of African cinema”—during my first year as an African Studies undergraduate student. Reading some of his texts and watching his films for the very first time, I was mesmerized by his decolonial thinking and the philosophy of autonomy behind his art. How he articulated and portrayed colonial realities, “post-colonial” mentalities, and hegemonic discourses, both in written and visual forms, was both incredibly relatable but also really moving and intellectually stimulating to me.