In precolonial Senegal, members of the Ceddo (or ‘outsiders’) kidnap Princess Dior Yacine (Tabata Ndiaye) after her father (Makhourédia Guèye), the king, pledges loyalty to an ascendant Islamic faction that plans to convert the entire clan to its faith. Attempts to recapture her fail, provoking further division between the animistic Ceddo and the fundamentalist Muslims, with Christian missionaries and slave traders from Europe caught in the middle.

Banned in Sembène’s native Senegal upon its original release, Ceddo is an ambitious, multi-layered epic that explores the combustible interstices among ancient tradition, religious colonisation, political opportunism, and individual freedom.

Screening as part of the Ousmane Sembène: The Father of African Cinema season.