The Global Griot : Sissako's Cinematic Journey
Life on Earth / La vie sur terre
Director's bio
Abderrahmane Sissako
Abderrahmane Sissako (born Oct 13, 1961, Kiffa, Mauritania) is a Mauritanian-born Malian director whose work explores globalization, exile, and everyday life across Africa and its diasporas. Notable films include Life on Earth (1998), Waiting for Happiness (2002), Bamako (2006), and Timbuktu (2014), which was nominated for an Academy Award and competed at Cannes; he returned with Black Tea (2024). His films foreground observational detail and ethical nuance, emphasizing human dignity within political and economic pressures.
Synopsis
On the cusp of the new millennium, Dramane returns from Paris to his father’s village of Sokolo in Mali. The film observes daily rhythms—post office routines, a photographer’s small rituals, market chatter—through a poetic, gently humorous lens that contrasts abundance in Western supermarkets with subsistence in rural Africa. Dramane’s tentative connection with Nana becomes a touchstone for contemplating time, modernity, and belonging; Sissako’s camera lingers on faces and gestures, allowing fragments of radio broadcasts and letters to braid personal memory with collective experience. Rather than plot-driven escalation, the film’s power emerges from accumulation: small moments of tenderness, social bustle, and pauses that let silence speak, forming a reflective portrait of a village registering the world’s changes at its own tempo.
Details of Cast
Abderrahmane Sissako, Nana Baby, Mohamed Sissako
Details of Crew
Cinematography: Jacques Besse, Editor: Nadia Ben Rachid
Producer Details
Writer Details
Stills
Categories
- International Competition (14)
- Homage (11)
- World Cinema (57)
- Country Focus : Vietnam (5)
- Indian Cinema Now (7)
- Kaleidoscope (8)
- Malayalam Cinema Today (12)
- Restored Classics (5)
- Opening Film (1)
- Special Screening (1)
- Midnight Screening (2)
- Spirit of Cinema (1)
- Signatures In Motion (4)
- Festival Favourites (13)
- Viva el Cine: Latin American Films (5)
- Saeed Mirza Retrospective (3)
- Ritwik Ghatak Centenary (4)
- Youssef Chahine Retrospective (3)
- Garin Nugroho: The Poetic Archipelago (5)
- The Suvarna Legacy : Suvarna Chakoram (17)
- Her Lens Her Voice (5)
- The Pantheon of IFFK: Lifetime (10)
- From Under The Olive Tree (4)
- 50 Years of Rajeevnath (1)
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