Remembering Safi Faye, Mother of African Cinema

By Parminder Vir OBE

March 16, 2023

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Safi Faye, the pioneering Senegalese filmmaker, passed away on February 22nd, 2023 at the age of 79. I was in Jamaica when I heard and I am still processing the sad news of her passing. Safi Faye’s passing is a great loss to the world of cinema and African culture. Her contribution to the film industry and her commitment to social justice and equality will not be forgotten. She will be remembered as a visionary filmmaker, a dedicated teacher, and a true pioneer in African cinema.

I first met Safi in January 1984 in Bombay, as it was known then, where we were both attending Filmotsav84. Filmotsav was a non-competitive version of the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) showing the best of Indian Panorama, retrospectives and cinema from around the world. The Filmotsav84 had a focus on African cinema which included films directed by Safi Faye. This is where I first saw her movies. My memory of our first meeting is her fearlessness as she embraced the city, eager to get out of the pristine, clean hotel to explore the real city by day and night. I feared for her safety, but she said “who would dare to mess with this black woman from Africa?” We became friends.

In 1985 I was a member of the International Steering Committee which organised an International Women’s Film Forum in Nairobi to mark the UN Decade of Women. Amongst the over 150 films we programmed were films directed by Safi Faye.

We would meet in 1986 in Paris when I was working as a series researcher on the Artist In Exile series with the BBC Music and Arts Department. I had proposed two artists as possible subjects for the series – Miriam Makeba from South Africa and Raul Ruiz a filmmaker from Chile. Raul Ruiz was living in exile in Paris and I had come to meet him to tell him about the series. While researching, my husband Julian Henriques and I visited Safi Faye who invited us home for dinner with her young daughter Zainub. It was Zainub who taught us the art of cutting a mango. She sliced the two cheeks of the mango and then cut the cheeks lengthwise and in the opposite direction and then popped it open. Now for someone who had grown up eating a bucket full of mangoes in her childhood in India, this was awesome and to this day we cut our mangoes as taught by Zainub in her mother’s kitchen. In the 1990s, Zainub would come to study in the UK and Safi called us to look out for her.

I owe Safi Faye a debt of gratitude for it was with her that I met El Comandante Fidel Castro at the International Festival of New Latin American Cinema in December 1987. We were attending the film festival and together we went to a reception which we were told Fidel Castro would be attending. She was a decade older than me, but we behaved like young teenage girls, eager to meet Fidel Castro. When he walked into the reception, Fidel Castro immediately spotted this very tall, beautiful, elegant Senegalese woman with the short Indian woman and he came over to meet us. He asked us so many questions about films, living in Paris, and London, and shared with us his hopes and dreams for the International School of Film and Television he inaugurated during the festival. Safi spoke French, me English and Fidel Spanish. Safi spoke about directing films in Africa and I told him I was assisting with a film for the BBC on the film school. For days we walked around Havana telling everyone how we had met Fidel and he had kissed our hands!

In 1990, I programmed Cinemama, films by woman filmmakers from Africa, Asia and Latin America for Channel 4’s season titled Women Call the Shots in which I included Safi Faye’s Kaddu Beykat also known as Letter from My Village (1976).

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A still from Kaddu Beykat (1976). Photo Credit: Black Women Directors

The next time I met Safi Faye was in 1995 in Paris where I was shooting a documentary about the modern-day father of Ethnographic cinema – Jean Rouch, directed by the Malian filmmaker and art historian writer Manthia Diawara, titledRouch in Reverse (1995). Safi Faye was thrilled to know we were making a film about a man who had played a pivotal role in her becoming a filmmaker. She had met Rouch in 1966, in Senegal and he would cast her in his film Petit a Petit (1968); she is so beautiful, and how Rouch’s camera adores this elegant African woman. Safi invited Manthia and me for dinner at her home in Paris. She was an amazing cook who introduced me to African cuisine and directed me to the best African restaurants in Paris. She came to our filming session of conversation with Jean Rouch and other African personalities in Paris. She was getting ready to release her film Mossane (1996) and had shared with me the years of struggle she had endured getting the legal rights to her film. The film was shown in ‘Un Certain Regard’ at the Cannes Film Festival. But this success never made it easier to raise funds for her films.

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A still from Mossane (1996). Photo Credit: Black Women Directors

We lost touch as I became consumed by the production of my first independent feature film Babymother. Today as I reflect on our meetings, I recall an intense, highly intelligent, passionate, serious and very beautiful woman. I am grateful for the memories.

Safi Faye leaves behind critically acclaimed films that explore the lives and struggles of ordinary people in Senegal. Her films were characterised by their strong social commentary, poetic style and unique blend of documentary and fictional elements. She was a dedicated educator, and she taught at several universities in France and Senegal.

Safi Faye Filmography:

La Passante (The Passerby) 1972

Kaddu Beykat (Letter from my Village) 1975. The first film by an African woman filmmaker to be commercially distributed.

Fadj’Jal 1979

Goob na ñu (The Harvest Is In) 1979

Man, Sa Yay (I, Your Mother) 1980

As Woman See It 1980

Les Ames au Soleil (Souls under the Sun) 1982

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A still from Selbé et tant d’autres (1983). Photo Credit: Black Women Directors

Selbé et tant d’autres (Selbe: One Among Many) 1983

Trois ans 5 mois (Three years, five months) 1983

Ambassades Nouurricieres (Culinary Embassies) 1984

Racines Noires (Black Roots) 1985

Elsie Haas, femme peintre et cineaste d’Haiti (Elsie Haas, Haitian Woman Painter and Filmmaker) 1985

Tesito 1989

Mossane 1996

If you are a young African considering filmmaking, then I would urge you to watch the films by Safi Faye for inspiration and education. This is the best way to honour and celebrate her life. Her legacy will continue to shape the future of African cinema for generations to come. Rest in Peace Safi Faye, Mother of African Cinema.