Sidney Sokhona Explained

Sidney Sokhona
Birth Date:	1952
Nationality:	Mauritanian
Occupation:	filmmaker and politician.

Sidney Sokhona (born 1952) is a Mauritanian filmmaker and politician.

Life

Sokhona shot his first feature film, Nationality: Immigration, from 1972 to 1975 as an immigrant in Paris. The film hybridised documentary and surreal fiction, with Sokhana himself playing the lead role of an immigrant living through a rent strike in the Rue Riquet.^[1]

Sokhona wrote on African cinema for Cahiers du Cinéma, arguing that "Africa was colonized, and so is its cinema", and that African film-makers were beginning "to draw up battle plans for [....] cinematic independence".^[2]

Filmography

• Nationalité: Immigré [Nationality: Immigration], 1975
• Safrana ou le droit à la parole [Safrana, or The Right to Speak], 1977

Festivals / Awards

1976 | 5ème FESPACO | Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso | www.fespaco.bf

• Prix spécial du jury (exaequo avec Sejnane, d’Abdellatif Ben Ammar, Tunisie)

1975 | Paris, France

• Prix Georges Sadoul

Notes and References

1. Sarah Cowan, The Right to Speak, The Paris Review, February 22, 2017.
2. 'Notre cinéma', Cahiers du cinéma, No. 285, February 1978. Trans. David Wilson as Book: Sidney Sokhona. Jim Hillier . David Wilson . Bérénice Reynaud . Nick Browne. Cahiers Du Cinéma: Volume Four, 1973-1978 : History, Ideology, Cultural Struggle. 2000. Psychology Press. 978-0-415-02988-9. 227–232. Our Cinema.