10th edition CIFF – 10-14 April 2024

FILMS 2024:  Caribbean Focus | Feature Films | Short Films | Yellow Robin Award Nominees
FILMS 2019: A – E | F – L | M – P | Q – S | T –  Z | Feature Film | Short Film
FILMS 2018: A – E | F – L | M – P | Q – S | T –  Z | Feature Film | Short Film
FILMS 2017: A – E | F – L | M – P | Q – S | T –  Z | Feature Film | Short Film
FILMS 2016: A – E | F – L | M – P | Q – S | T –  Z | Feature Film | Short Film
FILMS 2015: A – E | F – L | M – P | Q – S | T –  Z | Feature Film | Short Film

Timbuktu (2015 Feature Film)

Abderrahmane Sissako | France, Mauritania | 2014 | 97 min | French, Arabic, Bambara, English

Tragically, this beautiful film becomes more relevant every day. Almost everything in it is beautiful, from the locations to the traditional costumes, but the story is one of the major dramas of our time: fanatical strangers disrupt the lives of a nomadic community on the edge of the desert. The desert becomes an unwilling metaphor.
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Kidane, his family and young shepherd Issan live just outside Timbuktu, which is in the hands of fundamentalists; playing music, laughing, smoking and football are all forbidden. Women have no rights whatsoever, and every day an improvised tribunal makes absurd, tragic judgments. Then Kidane accidentally kills a fisherman, who had deliberately slaughtered his beloved cow. His fate is now in the hands of the Jihadists.

French-Mauritanian director Abderrahmane Sissako based Timbuktu on a true story from 2012, when Al Qaida fighters stoned to death the parents of two young children because they were not married. The Jihadists filmed the stoning and uploaded the film to the internet. This received scant media attention, much to Sissako’s dismay.

Nevertheless, his film is by no means an angry indictment; Timbuktu is a beautifully photographed, poignant and poetic plea for understanding, featuring beautiful music from Fatoumata Diawara from Mali, who also plays a minor role.

Place: The Cinemas 1

Date: 26 March 2015

Time: 21:45

Duration: 1:45

Place: The Cinemas 2

Date: 29 March 2015

Time: 17:00

Duration: 1:45

Year in
Festival

2015

Director

Abderrahmane Sissako

Camera

Sofian El Fani

Cast

Ibrahim Ahmed
Toulou Kiki
Abel Jafri
Fatoumata Diawara
Kettly Noël
Hichem Yacoubi
Pino Desperado

Country

France
Mauritania

Editor

Nadia Ben Rachid

Language

French
Arabic
Bambara
English

Length

97 min

Music

Amin Bouhafa

Producer

Sylvie Pialat

Production Design

Sebastian Birchler

Sales

Le Pacte

Scenario

Abderrahmane Sissako
Kessen Tall

Sound Design

Roman Dymny

Year of Production

2014

Website

www.trigon-film.org/en/movies/Timbuktu

Abderrahmane SISSAKO (1961, Mauretanië) groeide op in Mali en Mauretanië en studeerde aan het VGIK, het filminstituut van Moskou. Tegenwoordig woont en werkt hij in Frankrijk. Sissako was jurylid voor Berlinale in 2003 en Festival de Cannes in 2007. Zijn Timbuktu (2014), gebaseerd op een waargebeurde tragedie, won de Oecumenische Prijs en François Chalais-Prijs in Cannes.

 

Filmography

Le jeu/The Game (1989, short), Octobre/October (1993, short), Le chameau et les bâtons flottants (1995, short), Sabriya (1996, short), Rostov-Luanda (1997, doc), La vie sur terre/Life on Earth (1998), Heremakono/Waiting for Happiness (2002), Bamako/The Court (2006), Stories on Human Rights (segment ‘Dignity’) (2008), 8 (segment ‘Tiya’s Dream’) (2008), Je vous souhaite la pluie ( 2008, short doc), Timbuktu (2014)