The transformations of African landscapes, from rural to urbanized spaces, have engaged African media producers since the emergence of the African film industry in the 1960s. This chapter selects key early films in African cinema by filmmakers recognized as groundbreaking innovators who contributed to the canon of early African cinema, as it developed along with independence movements. Many early productions address the urban and post-colonial contexts, when compared to later films on the rural and pre-colonial settlements and ways of life that aim to educate audiences to value and safeguard traditional African cultural values, and advocate traditional and often rural ideals. The directors were pathfinders in terms of their social vision, working somewhat in parallel, if not necessarily in accord, with the French New Wave and auteur theory.

Ousmane Sembène, Borom Sarret (The Wagoner, Le Charretier), Senegal, 1963, 20 Minutes

Borom Sarret visualizes a day in the life of a cart driver who risks entering the modernized, official districts of post-independence Dakar, where horse carts are forbidden and their drivers do not usually stray beyond the Indigenous, informal districts. The film represents the city as a site of possibility for some, while those like the wagoner continue to be marginalized on the outskirts of what is effectively a segregated zone of Dakar's Plateau – its exclusionary spaces functioning as obstacles in daily living. (See Figure 1.1.)

In the director's first acclaimed short film, Dakar's social layers unravel into restricted zones. The title, Borom Sarret, possibly derives from the French expression bonhomme charretier (the good wagoner). In under 20 minutes, the film compresses the principles of a socio-political critique that the body of Sembène's work aspired to: attention to fundamental post-colonial issues, critique of class exploitation, corruption, Eurocentric modernism, and attention to workers’ and women's issues are presented in a socialist realist mode made riveting by an unrelenting criticism that spares no one. As summarized by Amadou T. Fofana, the unequivocal narrative ‘contains all the thematic seeds’ of Sembène's oeuvre.

The film opens with views of the mosque and a prayer scene, and then the camera lens travels over the sandy roads and streets of an improvised settlement, as the wagon driver sets off to encounter those who need a ride but are not included in the cash economy and have no means to pay him.