XALA
A Refocus Film Festival Classics Selection | 4K Restoration
An adaptation of Ousmane Sembène’s own 1973 novel offers a hilarious, caustic satire of political corruption under an inept patriarchy. On the night of his wedding to a third bride, government official El Hadji Abdoukader Beye is rendered impotent. After suspecting that one of his other wives has placed a curse (xala) on him and enlisting a local marabout for a cure, El Hadji must face the possibility that he deserves the infliction for his part in the embezzlement of public funds and for helping to keep Senegal in French hands. Adeptly combining elements from African folklore and popular cinema, Sembène uses Xala to indict the immoral hubris of entitled male authority figures and Senegalese sellouts.