Bamako. Melé is a bar singer, her husband Chaka is out of work and the couple is on the verge of breaking up... In the courtyard of the house they share with other families, a trial court has been set up. African civil society spokesmen have taken proceedings against the World Bank and the IMF whom they blame for Africa's woes... Amidst the pleas and the testimonies, life goes on in the courtyard. Chaka does not seem to be concerned by this novel Africa's desire to fight for its rights...

Cast & Crew
Producers: Abderrahmane Sissako, Denis Freyd
Director: Abderrahmane Sissako
Script: Abderrahmane Sissako
Director of Photography: Jacques Besse
Production Design: Mahamadou Kouyaté
Sound: Dana Farzanehpour
Editing: Nadia Ben Rachid, Pauline Casalis
Cast: Aïssa Maïga, Tiécoura Traoré, Hélène Diarra, Habib Dembélé…
Production. Archipel 33, Chinguitty Films, Mali Images, Arte France Cinema

Awards
Audience Award, Paris Cinema, 2006, Best French-Language Film, Lumiere Awards, France, 2007, FACE Award, Istanbul IFF, 2007

Abderrahmane Sissako
Abderrahmane Sissako is a Mauritian-born Malian film director and producer known for films which explore globalization and displacement. He studied cinema at the Federal State Film Institute in Moscow and in the 1990s settled in France. His first feature-length film, Waiting for Happiness, won a FIPRESCI Prize at the 2002 Cannes FF. His features Bamako (2006) and Timbuktu (2014) were widely acclaimed, with the latter selected to compete for the Palme d’Or and nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

Filmography (selected)
Rostov – Luanda (doc., 1997), Life on Earth (1998), Waiting for Happiness (2002), Bamako (2006), Timbuktu (2014), Black Tea (2024).