Institute Film Series: Timbuktu

Directed by the Mauritanian filmmaker Abderrahmane Sissako, Timbuktu evokes in a fictional mode the brief occupation of the eponymous historic Malian city by the Islamist armed group Ansar al-Dine, describing the imposition of a strict Sharia law on its Muslim inhabitants. The story follows the tragic episode of a deadly dispute between a cattle herder and a fisherman, and its judicial developments, but more broadly, through a series of vignettes, it depicts the tensions and contradictions generated by the new religious and social order. While it can be viewed as a powerful political fable, it is also a beautifully shot film combining poetry and humor. Screened in the 2014 Cannes competition where it won the François Chalais Prize of the Ecumenical Jury, it was awarded the César Awards for Best Film and Best Director in Paris and was nominated in 2015 for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film.

This film runs 1 hour and 36 minutes.

A post-screening discussion will be led by Andreas Eckert, Professor, Institute für Asien- und Afrika-Wissenschaften,Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, and Member in the School of Social Science.