Med Hondo's feature film debut, Soleil Ô (1967), follows an unnamed immigrant from West Africa as he migrates to Paris in search of work and a better life. Instead, he struggles to find stable employment, encountering exploitation in menial jobs and isolation from French society. Following a non-linear narrative, and blending surrealist and satirical elements, the film is a searing critique of racism and the broader legacies of colonialism. Noah Tsika's study situates Soleil Ô within its historical and political contexts, as well as within Hondo's broader career and lifelong commitment to anticolonial principles. He considers the film's depiction of the modern exilic experience as a cinematic response to France's notorious Charles Pasqua Laws, which targeted illegal immigration and sought to appeal to nativist sentiment. He explores its lengthy five-year production, examining Hondo's guerilla filmmaking tactics wherein he staged scripted scenes on the teeming streets of Paris and captured the immediate reactions of perplexed passers-by. In doing so, Tsika suggests that by using the devices of documentary to tell a fictional story, and the devices of fiction to document a precise, seismic moment in world history, Soleil Ô daringly extends the techniques of filmmakers such as Paulin Soumanou Vieyra and Ousmane Sembene into narrative, thematic, and political terrain not previously encountered in African cinemas.