Timbuktu

Outside the city, a cow belonging to the herdsman Kidane, who lives with his family in a tent, tears a fisherman's net. The quarrel escalates and ends in a death. At the same time, an armed group that has taken Timbuktu bans music, football, cigarettes and women appearing without gloves. The subject is not terror but the daily absurdity of prohibition. The armed men drive around announcing the rules through a megaphone, then smoke in secret among themselves and talk football. In the film's most unforgettable scene, children play football without a ball. The form is calm and distanced; the violence is mostly shown from far off, in a single shot, without music. The wide shot of Kidane's fight in the river is its most discussed passage. Abderrahmane Sissako wrote the film out of an event in Mali: the stoning of an unmarried couple in Aguelhok in 2012. For safety, filming took place not in Timbuktu but in Oualata in Mauritania. It competed at Cannes in 2014, won seven Césars in France and was nominated for the foreign language Oscar. Ibrahim Ahmed plays Kidane, Toulou Kiki his wife and Layla Walet Mohamed their daughter. Who it is for: viewers who like slow, formally strong political cinema. Who it is not for: anyone after pace and incident; the narrative proceeds in fragments and keeps itself deliberately cool.