In 1963 director Ousmane Sembene made this short (20 min), in 1966 followed by the feature length "Black girl" (65 min). "Black girl" is about discrimination, "Borom sarret" is about poverty. It is a kind of African Loach.
We meet a carter in Dakar who has mostly non paying clients. Some are too poor to pay, others are too lousy to pay. One of the last kind is a sharp dressed black man who wants a ride to the genteel district of the city.
The film is socially concious with comical undertones. It are the clients of the carter who keep the film lively, just as in "Night on earth" (1991, Jim Jarmusch).
Funny is the way the film makes use of music. Scenes in the poor part of town are accompanied by African music, scenes in the rich part of town are accompanied by European classical music. At the end of the film the carter concludes he feels more comfortable in his poor part of town.
Ousmane Sembene (1923 - 2007) is one of the most famous African filmdirectors and is sometimes called "the father of African film". The question if "Borom sarret" (1963) is the first African film made by someone from Africa or that this honor belongs to "Song of Khartoum" (1955, Gadalla Gubara) is rather irrelevant in this respect.
