In precolonial Senegal, members of the Ceddo (“outsiders”) kidnap Princess Dior Yacine after her father pledges loyalty to an Islamic faction that plans to convert the entire clan to its faith. Attempts to recapture her fail, provoking further division and eventual war between the animistic Ceddo and the fundamentalist Muslims, with Christian missionaries and slave traders from Europe caught in the middle. Banned in Sembène’s native Senegal upon its original release, CEDDO is an ambitious epic that explores the combustible interstices among ancient tradition, religious colonization, political opportunism, and individual freedom.