Sissako was born in his mother’s homeland of Mauritania, a Northwest African country, in 1961. He moved with his family to the neighboring country Mali — his father’s homeland — shortly after his birth. After a brief return to Mauritania in 1980, the filmmaker went to Moscow to study film at the Federal State Film Institute from 1983 ?to 1989.
Sissako then settled in France in the early 1990s.
Sissako is “one of the few filmmakers from Sub-Saharan Africa to be considered one of the world’s leading filmmakers” along with Ousmane Sembène, Djibril Diop Mambéty, Souleymane Cissé and Idrissa Ouedraogo, according to IU Cinema’s ?website.
IU Cinema is also screening all of Sissako’s feature-length films as well as his short films in a series titled “Abderrahmane Sissako: Transnational Poetic Cinema.” The themes of Sissako’s films include exile, displacement and globalization, according to IU Cinema’s ?website.
IU Cinema screened Sissako’s 2002 film “Waiting for Happiness” on April 12. The film was originally screened at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival and won a prize from the International Federation of Film Critics.
Sissako’s most recent movie “Timbuktu” screened at IU Cinema Thursday and was originally screened at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival in the running for the “Palm d’Or,” the festival’s main ?competition.
Two more of Sissako’s films will screen at IU Cinema after his lecture.
The filmmaker’s 2006 film “Bamako” screens at 6:30 p.m., and his 1998 documentary “Rostov-Luanda” screens at 9:30 p.m.
The final screening in Sissako’s series takes place April 19. IU Cinema will screen Sissako’s 1998 film “Life on Earth” at 3 p.m.
Adam Smith
