About

'Abderrahmane Sissako's new film is a powerful portrait of Mali, the country of his childhood, where foreign jihadists have been imposing theocratic rule since 2012. (The shoot was relocated to neighboring Mauritania due to violence in Mali during filming.) Forced adherence to draconian interpretations of Sharia law terrorizes and humiliates Timbutku's residents, and disrupts the delicate equilibrium that exists between the city's various ethnicities and the nomadic Tuareg. Sissako registers small acts of resistance in tableaux that include boys miming a game of football after the sport has been banned and a woman defiantly signing while receiving lashes for being caught making music. The narrative centers on the Tuareg shepherd Kidane, whose altercations over a prized cow land him in a court run by the foreign occupants. Heightened by the traditional Malian melodies of Amine Bouhafa's lyric score and immersive widescreen desert landscapes, Timbuktu is a powerful condemnation of a too-real threat.' MoMA, New York

'A film is really a way of telling a story about yourself. It's a way of showing the world around me, the people around me, the things that affect me. And the characters I usually show are usually very simple people, anonymous people. Most of them are people that fascinate me through their honesty, and their courage, their ability to survive the difficulties they're faced with, which often come from someplace else.' Abderrahmane Sissako

Ages 18+