Linton Rd
Oxford, Oxfordshire OX2 6UL
UK
Timbuktu is the Palme D’Or-nominated film from the Mauritanian master director Abderrahmane Sissako, which depicts with heartfelt lyricism the crippling effects of extremist ideology on the lives of those visited by instability and war.
The film illustrates the hypocrisy and absurdity of the extreme interpretation of religious laws imposed by a group of militants on the embattled residents of this austerely beautiful Malian city on the edge of the Sahara desert.
By foregrounding the quiet dignity of the local community, who, in scenes of great feeling and grace, defiantly resist the prohibitions on football and music, Timbuktu offers an elliptical and elegiac exposition of the forces currently driving thousands to flee their homelands to seek sanctuary elsewhere.
Professor Hein de Haas, former Co-Director of the International Migration Institute, will give a short introductory talk, drawing on his work investigating migration and the broader forces of social transformation in North Africa and the Middle East.