11.03.25, 20:30, Xala (1975)

Xala — literally ‘impotence’ in Wolof — is a film adaptation of Ousmane Sembènes' own 1973 novel. A hilarious, biting satire on political corruption under an inept patriarchy. On the night of his wedding to his third bride, wealthy civil servant El Hadji (Thierno Leye) becomes impotent and begins to suspect that one of his other wives put a curse on him. After seeking healing from a local marabout, El Hadji must face the fact that he deserves the curse for his part in embezzling public money and for helping to keep Senegal under French control.

Ousmane Sembène is one of the prominent pioneers of Subaharan African cinema. After Senegal's independence in 1961, he started his own productions there and wanted to bring African stories to a wide audience through films. Before, it was legally forbidden (Le Décret Laval) for Africans in the French colonies to make films to express their artistic, cultural and political vision. With La noire de... (1966) and Mandabi (1968), Sembène put Senegalese cinema on the world map, while Xala marked his big breakthrough as his third full-length feature.