A film with a powerful anti-extremist message has been internationally honored. The film Timbuktu was nominated for an American Academy Award and won top honors at France’s César Awards.
The film tells the story of northern Mali under the control of jihadists. The ancient caravan town of the title, often a byword for otherworldly remoteness, was seized by armed insurgents who cut a swath through the West African nation for most of 2012.
The movie depicts the resistance of the townspeople and their struggle to retain their way of life under the brutal, ultraconservative regime of the insurgents. It shows how women were forced to cover their faces by their new masters from al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb and Ansar al-Dine, which banned music and football and dealt out floggings and amputations.
The extremists demolished the mausoleums of Muslim saints, angrily dismissing them as “idolatry,” and destroyed precious manuscripts preserved in the city.
Originally to be filmed in Mali, most of the movie — the only African nominee for the best foreign film Academy Award — ended up being shot under military protection in Mauritania, the home of director Abderrahmane Sissako, with just a few scenes captured in Timbuktu itself.
“After a month of filming in Timbuktu, which had already been liberated, there was a suicide bombing outside the garrison,” Sissako said. “I thought to myself it was naive to bring a foreign team of French and Belgians there. We would have been easy targets.”
Characterized by its vivid yet unfussy cinematography, the French co-production was the first Mauritanian candidate for best foreign film at the Academy Awards. It was among five contenders in the category, which was won by the Polish film Ida in February 2015. The same month, Timbuktu won best French film at the César Awards.
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