La noire de (1966) and the loss of blackness: dialogues between Ousmane Sembène and Frantz Fanon

Abstract

Ousmane Sembène (1923 - 2007) is considered one of Africa's greatest filmmakers. Through his productions, he established basic models for filmmaking on the continent, and brought traditional principles and denunciations of colonization in Africa to the screen. This essay seeks to analyze one of his first films, La noire de... (1966), from the perspective of the work of psychoanalyst Frantz Fanon (1925 - 1961), more specifically Pele negra, máscaras brancas (2008) and Os condenados da terra (2010). In his writings, Fanon deals with a violent process of loss of blackness by colonized Africans, a process demonstrated in the agonizing narrative of La noire de... (1966).