Abderrahmane Sissako

Last week, Abderrahmane Sissako came to the department for a Q&A. As with many of the guests that we are lucky to get, Sissako was fantastic.

He has an interesting story: born in Mauritania, grew up in Mali, moved to Moscow for film school (VGIK). A short that he made went to Cannes, and garnered much attention to him. He was able to move to Paris and continue to make films on his own terms for French television (but still gets theatrical distribution). Most of his films are based in Africa and there was a screening of his earlier film Waiting for Happiness.

Through an interpreter, he was incredibly sincere, gentle, thoughtful and passionate about his experiences and his philosophies on filmmaking and working with actors.

He also screened a few scenes from his student films all the way up to his latest feature Bamako (in which the World Bank and the IMF are put on trial for screwing up Africa). In the scene he showed us, a villager comes to the podium and just starts singing in some native language that is not translated. However, everything the man is singing about is incredibly clear to the viewer. Perhaps one of the greatest moments on film that I've ever seen.