Soleil Ô

Alternate title(s): Oh, Sun
Foreign Title:
Date: January 01, 1970 to December 31, 1970
Dates Note: 1970
Country of Origin: Mauritania
Place of Origin: Mauritania
Languages: French , Arabic
Color: B&W
Silent: No
Based On:
Additional Info:

Restored by Cineteca di Bologna at L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory in collaboration with Med Hondo. Restoration funded by the George Lucas Family Foundation and The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project.

Curator Notes

Film Series/Exhibition Title: 
1968 and Global Cinema
Description: 

Soleil Ô, which takes its title from a West Indies song about the pain of Africans enslaved in the Caribbean, is a powerful depiction of immigrant experience, focused on a laborer who moves to Paris from West Africa in hopes of a better life. Instead he encounters a new iteration of slavery, postcolonial style—unemployment, institutional indifference, police hostility, and entrenched racism. Med Hondo relates, “All the scenes were based on reality. Because racism isn’t invented, especially in film. It’s like a kind of cloak put on you, that you’re forced to live with.”

Authors/Roles: 

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