Afrique sur Seine. 1955. Directed by Mamadou Sarr, Paulin Soumanou VieyraNationalité immigré (Nationality: Immigrant). 1976. Written and directed by Sidney Sokhona

Afrique sur Seine. 1955. Senegal/France. Directed by Mamadou Sarr, Paulin Soumanou Vieyra. DCP. In French; English subtitles. 22 min. Nationalité immigré (Nationality: Immigrant). 1976. France/Mauritania. Written and directed by Sidney Sokhona. With Sidney Sokhona, Jacques Ruisseau, Constant Hames. DCP. In French, Arabic; English subtitles. 72 min. One of the first films directed by Black Africans, Mamadou Sarr and Paulin Soumanou Vieyra’s Afrique sur Seine shows the early stirrings of a postcolonial identity. Vibrant with hopes of independence and freedom, yet still marked by the conventional attitudes of its time, this short film offers an affectionate, rousing portrait of the communities that migrated to Paris from the Sahel. Twenty years later, Sidney Sokhona shot Nationalité immigré, a historical depiction of a rent strike at a hostel that harbors immigrants in harrowing conditions. A blend of Brechtian fiction and documentary footage, the film stands as one of the most significant manifestos in defense of immigrant rights and human dignity against systematic labor exploitation and racism in a Western economy.