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Souleymane Cissé

Souleymane Cissé

Directing

Biography

Souleymane Cissé (21 April 1940 – 19 February 2025) was a Malian film director, regarded as one of the first generation of African filmmakers. He was called "Africa's greatest living filmmaker" while his film Yeelen has been called "conceivably the greatest African film ever made". He was the first director from sub-Saharan Africa to receive an award, at the Cannes Film Festival in 1987, for “Yeelen”, he was awarded the Golden Coach in 2023. Description above from the Wikipedia article Souleymane Cissé, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Known For

Henri Langlois vu par...
4.0

Thirteen filmmakers share personal reflections on Henri Langlois—the visionary founder of the Cinémathèque Française—recounting his influence on their lives, his role in preserving film history, and his enduring impact on world cinema.

Henri Langlois vu par...

2014
Yeelen
6.6

A young man with magical powers journeys to his uncle to request help in fighting his sorcerer father.

Yeelen

1987
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A Westernized filmmaker, Issa, is a polygamist whose third wife Mimi is a doctor and high-profile health minister. Accustomed to a certain degree of empowerment and independence from her husband (deciding to stay in her own house instead of moving into his household), Mimi carries on a not-too-subtle affair with the married Abba, a fishmonger who sends her a tell-tale case of fish after each encounter as a token of his affection. Confronted by Issa with his suspicions of infidelity after he finds Abba in the courtyard, Mimi decides to file for divorce, a move that soon brings on a new set of complications, as relatives plead for reconciliation to avoid the shame, Issa's second wife increasingly resents the attention paid to Mimi, and Abba's wife begins to grow suspicious of Mimi's role in her husband's life.

Tell Me Who You Are

2009
Time
6.4

Beginning in South Africa under the apartheid regime, the film follows a young girl who flees the country after a violent confrontation with a local white landowner in which her father is killed. She settles in Abidjan, where, ten years later, she has become a university student. As part of her studies, she visits the Taureg tribe on the edge of the Sahara before at last returning to post-Apartheid South Africa.

Time

1995
The Wind
6.1

Two Malian teenagers, Bah and Batrou, from different backgrounds, meet at secondary school. Bah is the descendent of a great tribal chieftain. Batrous father, a provincial military governor, represents the new ruling power. The two teenagers are part of a generation that rejects the established order and challenges the society in which they live.

The Wind

1983
A Daughter's Tribute to Her Father: Souleymane Cissé
N/A

Fatou Cissé accompanies her father, malien director Souleymane Cissé, through a trip down his film career, painting an intimate and poetic picture of one of Africa’s most celebrated actors.

A Daughter's Tribute to Her Father: Souleymane Cissé

2022
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No description available.

Ouaga

1988
Work
6.6

A young manager of a factory encounters a man walking along a road who says his family traditionally are servants to the manager's family. The manager offers him a job, and as he watches out for the other man's welfare, begins to see how the company mistreats its workers. The manager is challenged between his ethics and the pressure from others to protect his own interests as dire problems surface at the factory

Work

1978
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In Rennes, as part of the 5th Traditional Arts Festival in 1978, storytellers and musicians from the Seychelles islands express their concern with modernism and the disinterest of young people in traditional music.

Les chanteurs traditionnels des îles Seychelles

1978
The Young Girl
6.4

A young mute woman is raped and becomes pregnant, with disastrous consequences within her family. The film also sketches the social/economic situation in urban Mali in the 1970s, particularly in relation to the treatment of women.

The Young Girl

1975
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Postgraduate

1969
O Sembene!
N/A

Meeting of two greats, Cissé's tribute to the dean of African cinema is without discours, without pathos. It is the one returned by his mini camera, which attends the funeral ceremonies that marked the departure of Ousmane Sembene in Dakar, and finds the relatives of Sembene in the house he had built in Yoff, directly on rocks beaten by the ocean. These simple and close images, with a distance from the ceremonial that Sembene would have appreciated, those briefly borrowed from his films and archives, weave a film full of friendship and fraternity.

O Sembene!

2013
Our House
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Bamako. Several women are illegally evicted from their home in 2008. Their brother, Souleymane Cissé, takes up his camera to look back at his childhood and family history in a country heading for war despite a tradition of tolerance.

Our House

2015
Five Days in a Life
8.0

"Cinq jours d’une vie" is about a young man, N'Tji, orphaned at an early age, who lives under the supervision of his uncle. He is sent to Koranic school, where he is forced to memorize and recite verses of the Koran; soon, N’Tji escapes and begins to craft his own destiny. Unfortunately, he is found and thrown in prison, and must live with the implications upon release. In this film, Cissé explores the institution of the Koranic school and its detrimental effects on young people’s autonomy and ability to explore their futures.

Five Days in a Life

1973
Cinéastes de notre temps : Souleymane Cissé
9.0

Malian filmmaker Souleymane Cissé reveals his passion for cinema, Africa and the world to Cambodian director Rithy Panh.

Cinéastes de notre temps : Souleymane Cissé

1991
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A portrait of the Malian artist Mamadou Somé Coulibaly who draws his inspiration from the history of the African people.

Sources of Inspiration

1968
WHEN CINEMA SPEAKS...
N/A

Zineb Sedira pays tribute to the history of African Cinema and the filmmakers who had inspired her.

WHEN CINEMA SPEAKS...

2026