Part of Tahar Cheriaa: Chronicles of a Pan-African Pioneer

Director: Med Hondo

1970 / 102min / DCP

A landmark of the emerging African cinema at the moment of European colonial disinvestment, Mauritanian Hondo’s Soleil Ô is a gripping, intimate narrative of the diasporic experience. An unnamed African laborer (Robert Liensol) happily heads for a better life in Paris, only to discover the colonial mindset is alive, well, and suffocating. Speaking of the struggle he faced making the movie, Hondo said, “I decided to make films to bring some Black faces to the lily-white French screens, which have been ignoring us and the Black contribution to the world for years.”

Distributor: Janus Films