Mali Blues (2016)
- Directed by
- Lutz Gregor
- Genre
- documentary film
- Country
- Mali, Germany
- Runtime
- 1h 30m
- Rating
- 5.0 of 10 from 4 voters
- Elsewhere
- IMDb
The catalogue in 3D
The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this film is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.
How it feels
Four Malian musicians keep performing in Bamako after Islamist groups banned music in northern Mali in 2012. The film follows them as they make art under threat.
hopefuldefiantslow-pacedjoyfulculturalresilientmusicalunfolding
What happens
Mali Blues is a 2016 documentary film directed by German filmmaker Lutz Gregor. The film documents the lives of four musicians in Mali's capital city, Bamako, following a music ban with the takeover of northern Mali by Islamist groups between 2012 and 2013. The film had its premiere at the 2016 Visions du Réel, the international documentary film festival in Switzerland. Malian musicians Fatoumata Diawara, Ahmed Ag Kaedy, Bassekou Kouyate, and Master Soumy feature. The film had its premiere at the Visions du Reel in 2016, presented in the Bambara, Arabic, and French languages, with subtitles in English and French. American film critic Frank Scheck, in The Hollywood Reporter, wrote that although Mali Blues was repetitive and sluggish in its pacing at times, it was nevertheless a "gorgeous paean to the liberating effects of music and the joy it can bring even to people faced with violent repression in the name of religion." Los Angeles Times critic Kenneth Turan found the most "compelling" scene to be the one in which Diawara returns to her childhood home, where she performs a song and speaks out against female genital mutilation. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)
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