Abderrahmane Sissako can be described as a true citizen of the world. Born in Mauritania and raised in Mali, he later received a scholarship to study in distant Moscow. Over the course of his life, he has lived and worked across multiple continents—including Africa, Europe, and Asia. The Daily sat down with the global-minded auteur behind works like Waiting for Happiness (2002), Timbuktu (2014) and Black Tea (2024), who is in Yerevan as the Jury President of Golden Apricot’s Main Competition.
Sissako spent around twelve years in the USSR and later in Russia. The first result of his studies at VGIK, in Marlen Khutsiev’s directing workshop, was his diploma film The Game (1991), shot in the dunes of Turkmenistan. In it, children play-fight with wooden guns while adults grapple with the realities of actual war. This was followed by October (1993), which addresses interethnic romantic relationships, created in collaboration with renowned cinematographer Georgy Rerberg. When Sissako first arrived in the USSR, he was sent to Rostov to spend a year learning Russian. During the seemingly endless train ride from Moscow to Rostov, he met Baribanga, a fellow student from Angola who was heading to the same program, and the two quickly became friends. In 1997, several years after leaving Russia, Sissako made the documentary Rostov-Luanda. Alongside the search for a long-lost friend, the film offers a reflection on the filmmaker's own path and personal experiences.
Sissako’s first feature films, Life on Earth (1998) and Waiting for Happiness (2002), are deeply personal as well, filled with autobiographical elements that touch on themes such as leaving and returning home, the making of an artist, family relationships, and, more broadly, Africa’s place in the contemporary world. Politics takes on a more central role in Bamako (2006). Set in an ordinary backyard in Mali’s capital, the film stages a trial in which ordinary citizens bring a case against the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Sissako employs television-style techniques, using multiple cameras simultaneously on set — sometimes even visible within the frame. As a result, the fictional trial produces a documentary-like effect.
In 2014, Sissako directed Timbuktu, a film about universal values, yet based on real events: radical Islamists seize the ancient city of Timbuktu in Mali. The film portrays how the peaceful life of its residents is upended by harsh and absurd laws — even listening to music or playing football is forbidden. Sissako’s ability to capture the essence of a place, evident since The Game, is most vividly expressed here. He senses the innate expressiveness of the sand dune landscape, and portrays it without exaggeration or forced symbolism: a unique and balanced melding of realism and poetry. After Timbuktu, Sissako ventured into new territory — both geographically and cinematically — with Black Tea. Set in a modern Chinese city, the film uncovers the intercultural and interethnic connections between Asia and Africa that are often overlooked in cinema.
Despite his diverse creative experience and the cultural codes he carries, Sissako’s main source of inspiration remains his inner self. Much like the boy from Waiting for Happiness, he transforms the window of his room — if only in his mind — into a movie screen.
You have lived and worked in various countries — Mali, Mauritania, France, and even the USSR, during a time of significant change. Your experience at VGIK is particularly interesting, as many prominent Armenian directors, including Parajanov, also studied at that film school.
To be honest, I faced many difficulties during my first period of study at VGIK. I felt they treated me only as a taker and did not believe I could contribute anything from my culture and upbringing. From a Eurocentric perspective, I was seen as coming from a “poor” culture. I didn’t know anything about classical music or painting. Many believed that to become a creative person, you first needed to know all that. I disagree. While that knowledge is important for education, what a person carries inside matters more. I didn’t know who Picasso, Pissarro, or Van Gogh were, but I saw and experienced everything around me. I may not have listened to classical music, but I was influenced by my culture, with its unique and important music.
To this day, perceptions of Africa are often distorted. Which is sad — not for Africans, but for those who hold such views. Fortunately, the masters, the real artists, did not share those attitudes. For example, Marlen Khutsiev, who was also not entirely local since he was from Georgia, believed in my potential, and that that made a real difference. No matter how much we criticize the Soviet Union now, for me there was a sense of friendship among peoples: I studied alongside students from Uzbekistan, Armenia, Georgia, Cuba, Iraq, Palestine, and Vietnam. That diversity gave me a lot.
You make both documentary and feature films, yet even in your features, like Bamako or Timbuktu, documentary elements are clearly present: depiction of real events, a particular style of filming, and the presence of non-professional actors.
Cinema is a language. Just as I speak Russian, or even French, with an accent that is unique to me, cinema too carries an accent, shaped by the reality it reflects. You're right about the use of documentary methods and non-professional actors. It all comes from my reality. In our country, there are no film schools or theater institutes that train professional actors. There is hardly a film industry at all: before me, there was only one director. But I believe what matters most is using the means available to open a dialogue with the audience.
I remember being struck by the number of monuments in Moscow. It felt strange to me. I never really liked monuments: they’re so large, and always dedicated to specific heroes. But for me, real heroes were ordinary people, the ones I saw every day. That’s why there are no heroes in my films, only people: different from one another, yet also very much the same.
Speaking of Bamako, it was the first film where I felt like both a director and a spectator. Naturally, I had laid some groundwork, but all the key decisions were made in the morning on set. For instance, I would say, “We need a woman selling bananas,” but I didn’t know who exactly that would be. I believed in chance encounters, the abilities of a stranger, and the power of the image.
In Bamako, you use an unusual technique: geopolitical issues are played out in an ordinary backyard.
I don’t think filmmaking is about planning every single detail. Doubts are important too: cinema needs room to breathe. In Bamako, the plot is political: a trial against the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. It seemed no one could hold them accountable, even though for 30 years many African countries grew poorer and poorer instead of developing as promised. I decided that, as an artist, I could create a courtroom. That’s how I came up with the idea: a trial in my father’s yard. From there, the film took shape on its own. When you have four cameras capturing different angles, and you start shooting at eight in the morning and finish at twelve, so much can happen. That’s the magic of cinema: it can give you more than you expect.
After making films in Russia and Africa, you took on a new challenge: creating a film in the entirely unfamiliar setting of China. Black Tea stands apart from all your previous works. It’s more urban, filled with neon lights, reflections, and the strange cosiness of a city at night.
There is no truly unfamiliar place for an artist. If you try hard enough, you can find your way in any environment. After all, cinema is a way of seeing. If you have that perspective, you can film anywhere. Speaking of Black Tea, I should first say that today, everything still revolves around Europe, the West, and the globally dominant capital. There’s very little discussion about what role Africa or Asia might play in the future. Maybe many people didn’t fully understand this film, but my intention was to depict change and constant movement. People were surprised, “Are there really Africans in Asia?” They assumed Africans only moved westward. But life doesn’t work that way — it is always in motion. Movement, I believe, is one of the essential traits of humanity.
Instead of a definitive ending, your films frequently close with a comma or ellipsis. The audience doesn’t receive clear answers.
My response may not seem original, but I always try to leave a door open at the end, because life itself is unpredictable. I don’t even know whether I’ll be alive tomorrow. For me, an open ending is at the heart of creativity: an artist mustn’t put a full stop. It's optimism, against all odds. I understand there is a lot of suffering, disappointment, and anger in the world. Many artists don’t even have the opportunity or conditions to create. But if that possibility does exist, then one must believe in humanity. As Maxim Gorky said, the truth is in the human.
Alexander Melyan
Photo by Mane Hovhannisyan
Sissako spent around twelve years in the USSR and later in Russia. The first result of his studies at VGIK, in Marlen Khutsiev’s directing workshop, was his diploma film The Game (1991), shot in the dunes of Turkmenistan. In it, children play-fight with wooden guns while adults grapple with the realities of actual war. This was followed by October (1993), which addresses interethnic romantic relationships, created in collaboration with renowned cinematographer Georgy Rerberg. When Sissako first arrived in the USSR, he was sent to Rostov to spend a year learning Russian. During the seemingly endless train ride from Moscow to Rostov, he met Baribanga, a fellow student from Angola who was heading to the same program, and the two quickly became friends. In 1997, several years after leaving Russia, Sissako made the documentary Rostov-Luanda. Alongside the search for a long-lost friend, the film offers a reflection on the filmmaker's own path and personal experiences.
Sissako’s first feature films, Life on Earth (1998) and Waiting for Happiness (2002), are deeply personal as well, filled with autobiographical elements that touch on themes such as leaving and returning home, the making of an artist, family relationships, and, more broadly, Africa’s place in the contemporary world. Politics takes on a more central role in Bamako (2006). Set in an ordinary backyard in Mali’s capital, the film stages a trial in which ordinary citizens bring a case against the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Sissako employs television-style techniques, using multiple cameras simultaneously on set — sometimes even visible within the frame. As a result, the fictional trial produces a documentary-like effect.
In 2014, Sissako directed Timbuktu, a film about universal values, yet based on real events: radical Islamists seize the ancient city of Timbuktu in Mali. The film portrays how the peaceful life of its residents is upended by harsh and absurd laws — even listening to music or playing football is forbidden. Sissako’s ability to capture the essence of a place, evident since The Game, is most vividly expressed here. He senses the innate expressiveness of the sand dune landscape, and portrays it without exaggeration or forced symbolism: a unique and balanced melding of realism and poetry. After Timbuktu, Sissako ventured into new territory — both geographically and cinematically — with Black Tea. Set in a modern Chinese city, the film uncovers the intercultural and interethnic connections between Asia and Africa that are often overlooked in cinema.
Despite his diverse creative experience and the cultural codes he carries, Sissako’s main source of inspiration remains his inner self. Much like the boy from Waiting for Happiness, he transforms the window of his room — if only in his mind — into a movie screen.
You have lived and worked in various countries — Mali, Mauritania, France, and even the USSR, during a time of significant change. Your experience at VGIK is particularly interesting, as many prominent Armenian directors, including Parajanov, also studied at that film school.
To be honest, I faced many difficulties during my first period of study at VGIK. I felt they treated me only as a taker and did not believe I could contribute anything from my culture and upbringing. From a Eurocentric perspective, I was seen as coming from a “poor” culture. I didn’t know anything about classical music or painting. Many believed that to become a creative person, you first needed to know all that. I disagree. While that knowledge is important for education, what a person carries inside matters more. I didn’t know who Picasso, Pissarro, or Van Gogh were, but I saw and experienced everything around me. I may not have listened to classical music, but I was influenced by my culture, with its unique and important music.
To this day, perceptions of Africa are often distorted. Which is sad — not for Africans, but for those who hold such views. Fortunately, the masters, the real artists, did not share those attitudes. For example, Marlen Khutsiev, who was also not entirely local since he was from Georgia, believed in my potential, and that that made a real difference. No matter how much we criticize the Soviet Union now, for me there was a sense of friendship among peoples: I studied alongside students from Uzbekistan, Armenia, Georgia, Cuba, Iraq, Palestine, and Vietnam. That diversity gave me a lot.
You make both documentary and feature films, yet even in your features, like Bamako or Timbuktu, documentary elements are clearly present: depiction of real events, a particular style of filming, and the presence of non-professional actors.
Cinema is a language. Just as I speak Russian, or even French, with an accent that is unique to me, cinema too carries an accent, shaped by the reality it reflects. You're right about the use of documentary methods and non-professional actors. It all comes from my reality. In our country, there are no film schools or theater institutes that train professional actors. There is hardly a film industry at all: before me, there was only one director. But I believe what matters most is using the means available to open a dialogue with the audience.
I remember being struck by the number of monuments in Moscow. It felt strange to me. I never really liked monuments: they’re so large, and always dedicated to specific heroes. But for me, real heroes were ordinary people, the ones I saw every day. That’s why there are no heroes in my films, only people: different from one another, yet also very much the same.
Speaking of Bamako, it was the first film where I felt like both a director and a spectator. Naturally, I had laid some groundwork, but all the key decisions were made in the morning on set. For instance, I would say, “We need a woman selling bananas,” but I didn’t know who exactly that would be. I believed in chance encounters, the abilities of a stranger, and the power of the image.
In Bamako, you use an unusual technique: geopolitical issues are played out in an ordinary backyard.
I don’t think filmmaking is about planning every single detail. Doubts are important too: cinema needs room to breathe. In Bamako, the plot is political: a trial against the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. It seemed no one could hold them accountable, even though for 30 years many African countries grew poorer and poorer instead of developing as promised. I decided that, as an artist, I could create a courtroom. That’s how I came up with the idea: a trial in my father’s yard. From there, the film took shape on its own. When you have four cameras capturing different angles, and you start shooting at eight in the morning and finish at twelve, so much can happen. That’s the magic of cinema: it can give you more than you expect.
After making films in Russia and Africa, you took on a new challenge: creating a film in the entirely unfamiliar setting of China. Black Tea stands apart from all your previous works. It’s more urban, filled with neon lights, reflections, and the strange cosiness of a city at night.
There is no truly unfamiliar place for an artist. If you try hard enough, you can find your way in any environment. After all, cinema is a way of seeing. If you have that perspective, you can film anywhere. Speaking of Black Tea, I should first say that today, everything still revolves around Europe, the West, and the globally dominant capital. There’s very little discussion about what role Africa or Asia might play in the future. Maybe many people didn’t fully understand this film, but my intention was to depict change and constant movement. People were surprised, “Are there really Africans in Asia?” They assumed Africans only moved westward. But life doesn’t work that way — it is always in motion. Movement, I believe, is one of the essential traits of humanity.
Instead of a definitive ending, your films frequently close with a comma or ellipsis. The audience doesn’t receive clear answers.
My response may not seem original, but I always try to leave a door open at the end, because life itself is unpredictable. I don’t even know whether I’ll be alive tomorrow. For me, an open ending is at the heart of creativity: an artist mustn’t put a full stop. It's optimism, against all odds. I understand there is a lot of suffering, disappointment, and anger in the world. Many artists don’t even have the opportunity or conditions to create. But if that possibility does exist, then one must believe in humanity. As Maxim Gorky said, the truth is in the human.
Alexander Melyan
Photo by Mane Hovhannisyan