Andrew Worsdale
Djibril Diop Mambety, Senegal’s major visionary film-maker, died last week after a long fight against throat cancer. Mambety was, without doubt, Africa’s most fanciful film-maker – the only man who treated African stories with the lateral cinematic vision they crave.
Starting his movie-making in 1968 with Contras-City, dubbed the first African comedy, the next year he made Badou Boy, a roguish interplay between the establishment and the guys on the street.
And so followed his three movies that were recognised: Touki Bouki (1973), Hyenas (1992) and Le Franc (1993). Finally African and European investors supported him for the cinematic poet he undoubtedly was. When he died he was working on the post- production of his fourth in the series, La Petite Vendeuse du Soleil, which was intended to be part of his poetic exploration of money fighting traditional values.
When I interviewed him in 1996 he said: “My life is more important than the cinema. `Griot’ is the word for what I do and the role a film-maker has in society. It is a Wolof word which for me means more than a storyteller. Griot is a messenger of one’s time, a visionary and the creator of the future. The film-maker has much more to account for than an accountant or banker. He represents the collective consciousness of his people and he has to make it sublime and useful.”
Mambety and I became close acquaintances after our first interview. He became my mentor at a festival in Amiens, where we danced together like lovers. It was the love of what cinema can deliver.
Mambety once told me: “My mother called me Djibril. That is Gabriel, so I’m like the angel who sits next to God.” I hope you’re dancing in heaven.