Guelwaar
Directed by Ousmane Sembene, Senegal, 1992. 115 minutes. In Wolof and French with English subtitles.

Source: New Yorker Films

On the morning of the funeral the political activist Guelwaar, his friends and family discover to their horror that his body has disappeared from the morgue. Because he died violently, theories on the whereabouts of the corpse multiply wildly before the truth is revealed: the remains of this baptized Catholic have been mistakenly buried in a Muslim cemetery. The confusion that ensues due to this bureaucratic mix-up and the amazing attempts to rectify this error add up to a razor-sharp critique of contemporary politics and the fractious religious dogma that still exists in many places, including the sahel, a drought-stricken belt in Senegal, where the film takes place. Inspired by a true story, Sembene uses the death of this champion of an independent, unified Africa to symbolize the petty jealousies and deeply rooted conflicts that are the enemies of that cause.

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