Monday, February 6
Time:5:30
Moolaade (Senegal, 2004, 124 minutes), was voted one of the ten best films of the year by many publications. The final film from African cinema's founding father Ousmane Sembene, Moolaade is a potent polemic directed against the still-common practice of female circumcision. Though the subject matter is weighty, this buoyant film is anything but. Sembene places the action amid a colorful, vibrant tapestry of village lige, employing emblematic metaphors, mythic overtones, and spirited songs.
Set in a small African village, four young girls facing a ritual "purification", flee to the household of Colle' Ardo Gallo Sy, a strong-willed woman who has managed to shield her own teenage daughter from Mutilation. Colle' invokes the time-honored custom of moolaade (santuary) to protect the young girls and endangers the prospective marriage of her daughter to the heir-apparent to the tribal throne.