alr

Xala

Screening on Film
Directed by Ousmane Sembene.
With Thierno Leye, Seune Samb, Miriam Niang.
Senegal, 1974, 35mm, color, 123 min.
Wolof and French with English subtitles.

Zeroing in on the myth of African independence and on the capitulation to white colonial policies by newly empowered black African leaders, this savage and funny satire deals with a self-satisfied, half-Westernized black businessman who is suddenly struck down by the xala—a curse that renders its victim impotent. While he desperately chases after witch doctors and soothsayers in search of a cure, the character’s condition becomes a mirror of the impotence of young African nations that are over-dependent on white technology and bureaucratic structures.

Part of film series

Read more

Four Masters: Tarkovsky / Sembene / Akerman / Kiarostami

Other film series with this film

Read more

Ousmane Sembene –
The Father

Read more

Ousmane Sembene – In Memoriam

Read more

Ousmane Sembène, Cinematic Revolutionary

Current and upcoming film series

Read more

The Reincarnations of Delphine Seyrig

Read more

Rosine Mbakam, 2025 McMillan-Stewart Fellow

Read more

The Illusory Tableaux of Georges Méliès

Read more

Activism and Post-Activism. Korean Documentary Cinema, 1981-2022

Read more

Fables of the Reconstruction. Nelson Carlo de Los Santos Arias

Read more

Ben Rivers, Back to the Land

Read more

Harvard Undergraduate Cinematheque

Read more

Make Way for Tomorrow. Carson Lund’s Eephus

Read more

Jessica Sarah Rinland’s Collective Monologue