10 Things I Learned: Black Girl
![10 Things I Learned:<em> Black Girl</em>](https://s3.amazonaws.com/criterion-production/editorial_content_posts/hero/5582-/KyndBEtdAxMkftqBNEVumKPg91bDvj_original.jpg)
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1.
Senegalese master Ousmane Sembène was already a celebrated novelist before becoming a filmmaker. His decision to direct was fueled by his recognition of cinema as a “political tool,” one that could rally the masses against a depicted social injustice, and reach audiences that a book, which depends on the literacy of its potential readers, could not.
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2.
Sembène was, to his very last days, a stalwart Marxist. His understanding of class conflict germinated while he worked on the docks in France during the forties. In 1950, he joined the French Communist Party.
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