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A motorbike adorned with a zebu skull is one of the central images of Djibril Diop Mamb\xe9ty's classic 1973 film, whose title translates as The Journey of the Hyena. Listed as one of the 100 greatest films of all time in the Sight and Sound magazine poll, it mixes West African oral traditions with influences from the French New Wave and Soviet cinema. Mory and Anta are two young people growing up in a newly independent Senegal who fantasise about leaving Dakar for a new life in France, but how can they realise those dreams and do they really want to leave? Matthew Sweet is joined by New Generation Thinker Sarah Jilani, Estrella Sendra Fernandez and Ashley Clark.

Sarah Jilani is a lecturer in English at City, University of London and has written on neocolonialism in Francophone West African cinema.\nEstrella Sendra Fernandez lectures in film and screen studies at SOAS, University of London. She directed the award-winning documentary film T\xe9moignages de l\u2019autre c\xf4t\xe9 about migration in Senegal.\nAshley Clark is curatorial director at the Criterion Collection. He is the author of the book Facing Blackness: Media and Minstrelsy in Spike Lee\u2019s \u201cBamboozled\u201d

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

Image: Mareme Niang (Right), and Magaye Niang in a still from the film Touki Bouki Le Voyage de la Hy\xe8ne, 1973 Senegal. Director : Djibril Diop Mamb\xe9ty.\nImage credit: Alamy

In the Free Thinking archives you can find a series of programmes exploring silent film, star actors including Jean-Paul Belmondo, Marlene Dietrich, Dirk Bogarde, and classics of cinema around the world including Kurosawa's Rashomon, Satyajit Ray's Pather Panchali, the films of Jacques Tati and Charlie Chaplin.