Timbuktu

One of the greatest works from a master filmmaker of our time, Timbuktu is a stunning portrait of a Malian community whose social fabric unravels after the arrival of the extremist group Ansar Dine. Sissako’s film is undoubtedly one of the canniest contemporary depictions of Islamic extremism: how its perpetrators are driven by confusion and desperation and how the people most horrifically impacted are their neighbors, often fellow Muslims whose interpretation of their religion means respect for life and nature. The desert landscape is filmed with a searing beauty that feels heartbreaking when pain and violence arise in its sandy stillness. The Academy Award-nominated film was inspired by real events, and the story’s relevance was underscored by the fact that Sissako could not film in Mali after a suicide bomb was detonated in the city of Timbuktu.