7-9 p.m. ET Thursday, February 8, 2024
Cinema Nights at the Museum: Soleil O
In-person at AANM
Purchase Tickets: Free for Members | $5 General Public
Join us as we launch our in-person film series, Cinema Nights at the Museum. We begin with the screening of Soleil O. Soleil O is a furious howl of resistance against racist oppression and colonialism. The debut film from Mauritanian director Med Hondo is a bitterly funny, artistic, stylistically explosive attack on Western capitalism and the legacy of colonialism. The film very cleverly weaves together the struggles, stereotypes and narratives of African, Arab and other Black & Brown immigrants in the West.
Laced with deadly irony and righteous anger, Soleil O follows a starry-eyed immigrant as he leaves West Africa for Paris in search of a job and cultural enrichment, but soon discovers a hostile society in which his very presence elicits fear and resentment. Drawing on the freewheeling stylistic experimentation of the French New Wave, Hondo deploys a dizzying array of narrative and stylistic techniques—animation, docudrama, dream sequences, musical numbers, folklore, slapstick comedy, agitprop—to create a revolutionary landmark of political cinema and a shattering vision of awakening black consciousness.
Soleil O / France, Mauritania / 1970 / 105 minutes / French and Arabic with English Subtitles / PG-13 (sensitive topics)
For questions, e-mail Dave Serio at [email protected].
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