“Timbuktu” is no longer in Africa – The World

Le Monde | 27/02/2015 at 9:22 • Updated 02/27/2015 at 10:39 | By Thomas Sotinel

Show Timbuktu in Africa: it was to be the completion of the crazy business launched by Abderrahmane Sissako winter 2013-2014, when he went with his team, on the border between Mali and Mauritania, turning his fourth feature film . The evocation of occupation of the holy city of northern Mali by jihadists in 2012 was first presented in competition at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2014. Released on 10 December in French cinemas, Timbuktu exceeded 800,000 entries, an unprecedented figure for an African work.

Nominated for an Oscar for foreign language film, he won seven Caesars February

20 in Paris. This left to present the African soil, where it has so far been projected that very quietly, in Nouakchott and Bamako. Fill a gap that had timely selection of the film in the competition of the Pan African Film Festival of Ouagadougou cinema (FESPACO) in Burkina Faso, the oldest film festival in the south of the Sahara, held from February 28 to March 6. The filmmaker saw the opportunity to show his film – which was scheduled on March 5 in Burkina cinema, like all the titles in competition -. In a “showcase for all Africa” ​​

But this projection is now being challenged in Burkina Faso. As early as February 25, removal of the film by Abderrahmane Sissako competition FESPACO for “security reasons” seemed inevitable. The festival had said that this decision was made …