XALA

Credits

Name: XALA

Country: Senegal

Year of publication: 1975

Format: DCP

Color: color

Language : OmeU

Duration: 128 Minuten

Series: 21. Afrika Film Festival Köln

Direction: Sembène, Ousmane

Abstract

El Hadji Abdou Kader Beye, a Senegalese businessman in his fifties, decides to take a third wife as a sign of social and economic success. On the evening of the wedding, he is unable to consummate the union, and is struck down by impotence. He believes himself to be the victim of a curse, the XALA, cast by a peasant whom he had once ruined (Source: Africultures). Adapted from his novel of the same name (1973), this feature film by writer and film-maker Ousmane Sembène criticises the new post-independence bourgeois class and describes the evils of neo-colonialism. XALA is a social satire that continues to resonate with contemporary society.