Camp De Thiaroye

Camp De Thiaroye - 2003-05-08. Director: Ousmane Sembène, Thierno Faty Sow, Senegal, 1987, Color, 152 minutes. Camp De Thiaroye is a drama based on a true story similar to Sembène's other film, 'Xala', addressing the situation of African soldiers in the French army at the end of World War II. From the late World War II onwards, we witness the disintegration of the colonial myth of white racial superiority and the beginning of the awakening of African nations. By 1945, many Senegalese infantry soldiers, even after completing their heroic and bloody service during the war, were abandoned in Dunkirk, and a significant number of them were likely still in Nazi detention camps. The film's story begins when, at the end of the war, the French place these soldiers in a transit camp ostensibly to prepare them for discharge. However, the main intention of the camp's operators is to re-establish the structures of white oppression that had been disrupted during the war. The story escalates when a dispute arises over one of the camp's regulations, which soon turns into a full-blown rebellion, ultimately met with a bloody crackdown. Sembène was a co-director of this film, but he was responsible for all other aspects of the film, including production and screenplay writing.