Mandabi
(DVD) 

Title and credits from screen.

Based on the novella "Mandat" by Usman Semben.

Originally produced as a motion picture in 1968.

New 4K digital restoration.

Wide screen (1.66:1).

"Features: introduction by film scholar Aboubakar Sanogo; conversation from 2020 with author and screenwriter Boubacar Boris Diop and sociologist and feminist activist Marie Angélique Savané; "Praise song," a new program about director Ousmane Sembène featuring outtakes from the 2015 documentary "Sembène!" of interviews with author and activist Angela Davis, musician Youssou N'Dour, filmmaker and scholar Manthia Diawara, and many others; short film "Tauw" (1970) by Sembène; new English subtitle translation by Sembène biographer Samba Gadjigo.

Essay by critic and scholar Tiana Reid, excerpts from a 1969 interview with Sembène, and a new edition of Sembène's 1966 novella on which the film is based in container.

Cinematography, Paul Soulignac ; film editing, Gilou Kikoïne, Max Saldinger ; directors of production, Jean Maumy, Paul S. Vieyra.

Makhouredia Gueye, Yunus Ndiay, Isseu Niang, Mustapha Ture, Farba Sarr.

A man tries to cash a check sent from his nephew, but encounters problems because he has no identity card.

"Shot primarily in Wolof, this second feature by Ousmane Sembène was the first ever made in an African language--a major step toward the realization of the trailblazing Senegalese filmmaker's dream of creating a cinema by, about, and for the inhabitants of his home continent. After jobless Ibrahima Dieng receives a money order for 25,000 francs from a nephew who works in Paris, news of his windfall quickly spreads among his neighbors, who flock to him for loans even as his attempts to cash the order are stymied in a maze of bureaucratic obstacles, and new troubles rain down on his head. One of Sembène's most coruscatingly funny and indignant films, Mandabi--an adaptation of a novella by the director himself--is a bitterly ironic depiction of a society scarred by colonialism and plagued by corruption, greed and poverty"--Container.

DVD; NTSC; region 1; Dolby digital mono; 16:9 widescreen presentation.

For private home use only.

In Wolof and French with optional English subtitles.