Manthia Diawara
Manthia Diawara was born in Mali, West Africa. He is a distinguished Professor of Comparative Literature and Film at New York University.
Manthia Diawara is a prolific writer and film-maker. His essays on art, cinema and politics have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, LA Times, Libération, Mediapart and Artforum. He is the author of two acclaimed memoirs: In Search of Africa (Harvard University Press, 2000) and We Won’t Budge: An African in the World (Basic Books, 2008). He has published several books on African and African American cinema.
Diawara’s notable films include: Angela Davis: A World of Greater Freedom (2023), AI: African Intelligence (2022), A Letter from Yene (2022), An Opera of the World (2017), Negritude: A Dialogue between Soyinka and Senghor (2015), Édouard Glissant, One World in Relation (2010), Maison Tropicale (2008) and Rouch in Reverse (1995). His films have been presented at festivals, biennials and a wide range of exhibition venues, including the Berlin International Film Festival, Bienal de São Paulo, Biennale de Dakar, Biennale de Lubumbashi, Centre Pompidou, documenta, Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), Lumiar Cité, Museu de Serralves, HKW-Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Manifesta, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Pan-African Film & TV Festival of Ouagadougou (FESPACO), Serpentine Galleries and Sharjah Biennial.
AVAILABLE FROM TWN
Bamako Sigi-kanManthia Diawara
2002, 76 min., Color, US
This original documentary shot by Arthur Jafa brings a new look to the modern African city and enables a better understanding from the inside of how democracy takes root in Mali. Discover how politics in the city and in everyday life is lived in a changing society still inscribed within tradition as...
Conakry Kas: The Conakry PeopleManthia Diawara
2003, 82 min., Color, US
In January 2003, Director Manthia Diawara visited Guinea-Conakry to see what was left of the artists (Ballets Africains, Bembeya Jazz National) and intellectuals (D.T. Niane, Telivel Diallo) of the Guinean Cultural revolution, and how its citizens of Conakry were coping with globalization. The film...
Diaspora Conversations: from Goree to DogonManthia Diawara
2000, 47 min., Color, US
Actor Danny Glover and director Manthia Diawara travel through West Africa from Goree to Dogon, creating conversations that link different sides and accounts of the African diaspora. "Diaspora Conversations" traces a journey of memory. Traversing through various locales, they negotiate between the c...
Edouard Glissant: One World in RelationManthia Diawara
2010, 50 min., Color, US
In 2009, filmmaker Manthia Diawara, along with his camera, documented his conversations with Martinican philosopher, writer, and poet Édouard Glissant aboard the Queen Mary II on their transatlantic journey from Southampton, England to New York City. This intellectual voyage encapsulates Glissant’s ...
In Search of AfricaManthia Diawara
1997, 26 min., Color, US
In 1996, the filmmaker and writer Manthia Diawara, now living in New York, returns to Guinea, thirty-two years after he and his family were expelled from the newly liberated country. Despite the years that have gone by, Diawara expects to be welcomed as an insider, and is shocked to discover that he...
A Letter from YeneManthia Diawara
2022, 50 min., Color
A LETTER FROM YENE emerges from conversations with the community in the seaside town of Yene, Senegal, where Diawara lives for part of the year. The area was traditionally and primarily occupied by fishermen and farmers but has in recent decades been besieged by coastal erosion and uncontrolled urb...
Maison TropicaleManthia Diawara
2008, 58 min., Color, Republic of Congo/France
In 2008, filmmaker Manthia Diawara and artist Angela Ferreira travelled to Brazzaville, Republic of the Congo to “search through the debris left behind by those who took away the [Maison Tropicales].” Designed by French architect and designer Jean Prouvé, the Maison Tropicales were a set of prefabr...
Negritude: A Dialogue Between Wole Soyinka and SenghorManthia Diawara
2015, 59 min., Color, USA/France/Germany/Portugal
This imagined dialogue between Léopold Sédar Senghor, one of the founding fathers of Negritude, and Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka was reconstructed almost entirely from archival materials. It probes the relevance of the concept of Negritude against the views of its many critics, not only to the decolo...
An Opera of the WorldManthia Diawara
2018, 70 min., Color
Manthia Diawara’s film is based on the African opera Bintou Were, a Sahel Opera, which recounts an eternal migration drama. The Bintou Were opera, filmed on location in Bamako, in 2007, serves as a mirror for Diawara to build an aesthetic and reflexive story, through song and dance, about the curren...
Rouch in ReverseManthia Diawara
1995, 52 min., US/UK
Malian filmmaker and scholar Manthia Diawara critiques visual anthropology through the work of Jean Rouch....
Sembene: the Making of African CinemaManthia Diawara & Ngugi Wa Thiong'o
1994, 60 min., Color, UK
This rich documentary follows the legendary Senagalese filmmaker Sembene Ousmane from the Pan African Film Festival in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso back to the streets of Dakar and his Galle Ceddo home at Yoff, overlooking the sea. Revisiting several locations of his films, Sembene Ousmane reminisces a...
Who's Afraid of Ngugi?Manthia Diawara
2006, 83 min., Color, US/Kenya
Novelist, essayist, playwright, journalist, editor, academic and social activist Ngugi wa Thiong'o was born in Kenya, in 1938 into a large peasant family. In 1977 his novel Petals of Blood was published to critical acclaim. The novel painted a harsh and unsparing picture of life in neo-colonial Keny...
