Djibril Diop Mambéty 1945-1998
Contras City (1968)
Duration: 21 min.
Djibril Diop Mambéty's earliest film, a short entitled Contras City (1968), highlighted the contrasts of cosmopolitanism and unrestrained ostentation in Dakar's baroque architecture against the modest, everyday lives of the Senegalese. Mambéty's recurrent theme of hybridity—the blending of elements from precolonial Africa and the colonial West in a neocolonial African context—is already evident in Contras City, which is considered Africa's first comedy film.
RESOURCES:
This UbuWeb resource is presented in partnership with Bidoun Magazine
Bidoun Website
Djibril Diop Mambéty's earliest film, a short entitled Contras City (1968), highlighted the contrasts of cosmopolitanism and unrestrained ostentation in Dakar's baroque architecture against the modest, everyday lives of the Senegalese. Mambéty's recurrent theme of hybridity—the blending of elements from precolonial Africa and the colonial West in a neocolonial African context—is already evident in Contras City, which is considered Africa's first comedy film.
RESOURCES:
This UbuWeb resource is presented in partnership with Bidoun Magazine
Bidoun Website