Abderrahmane Sissako has a knack for taking weighty issues and saturating them with the every-day lives of a city’s ordinary people and, in the process, making the stories play out like vibrant, visually luscious soap operas. In his first feature film, "Bamako," Sissako looked at European/Western colonialism, capitalist neo-imperialism and their effects on Africa. The West, as represented by the IMF and World Bank, goes on trial in the courtyard of a humble compound in Mali’s capital city. In "Timbuktu," Sissako moves the action about 620 miles north-east, to the ancient city of learning and trade, to look at another form of cultural and ideological invasion, this time…
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