Touki Bouki

In Dakar, Mory, who herds cattle, and Anta, a university student, share one dream: getting to Paris. They run small scams to raise the money. As the preparations advance, which of them actually wants to leave keeps changing. Djibril Diop Mambety wrote and directed. The film breaks the narrative habits of African cinema up to that point. There is no linear story; the editing jumps, sound and image often separate, and fantasy and reality share a scene. It arrived alongside the new wave experiments in Europe but built its language independently. The ox horns mounted on the handlebars of a motorbike are its best-known image. At the centre is a postcolonial question: is going to Europe deliverance or being torn from your own ground. The film does not answer. It was hard to see for a long time. It was restored by the World Cinema Foundation in 2008 and returned to circulation. Who it is for: viewers curious about experimental narrative and the founding works of African cinema. Who it is not for: anyone expecting a straight story; the film is deliberately fragmented.