Beninborn Senegalraised filmmaker theorist and historian Paulin Soumanou Vieyra was a key figure as both practitioner and thinker in the creation and articulation of what a postcolonial African cinema would and could be Along with producing essential texts like Film and the Problem of Languages in Africa and Remarks on African Cinema founding the important Fédération Panafricaine des Cinéastes and mentoring the likes of Ousmane Sembène Djibril Diop Mambéty and Ababacar SambMakharam Vieyra turned out a vital body of film work documenting the birth of a new continental consciousness