COMPETITION – Timbuktu, the silence of fear

After October in 1993, Waiting for Happiness in 2002 and Bamako in 2006, Abderrahmane Sissako presents Timbuktu in Official Selection. With this fourth feature film, the Mauritanian director opts for a fictional handling of a topical and tragically burning issue: the conflict in northern Mali. The terror inflicted by the “men from other places” has reduced the people of sub-Saharan Africa to silence.

Under the yoke of religious extremists, the Malian town of Timbuktu suffers the crimes of the Jihadists this on a daily basis: “over half the country is occupied by men from other places.” As is so often the case, the women are on the frontline. In telling the story of Kidane, Fatima, their daughter Toya and Issan, their little shepherd boy, Abderrahmane Sissako rises up against this climate of terror that has taken root in this Saharan region, “to the near-total indifference of the world media.” The director bears witness to the “silent combat of the armed men and women” through a film shot, as so often, in his beloved Sahel. A film that serves to denounce the grim reality.

Photo from the film Timbuktu © RR

Born in Mauritania, Abderrahmane Sissako spent a large part of his childhood in Mali before moving to Europe – a personal story told in a previous work Waiting for Happiness. In his latest feature film, he returns to the desert in which he grew up: the film was shot in Oualata In the East of Mauritania, near to the Malian border and under military surveillance.

Charlotte Pavard

SCREENING(S)

Thursday, 15 May / Grand Théâtre Lumière / 12 noon – 10.30 pm

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