Yeleen
(Brightness)
Screening on Film
Directed by Souleymane Cissé.
With Issiaka Kane, Aoua Sangare, Niamanto Sanogo.
Burkina Faso/France, 1987, 35mm, color, 105 min.
Bambara and French with English subtitles.
With Issiaka Kane, Aoua Sangare, Niamanto Sanogo.
Burkina Faso/France, 1987, 35mm, color, 105 min.
Bambara and French with English subtitles.
One of Africa’s leading directors, Cissé gained critical attention for the burgeoning African film movement with his first fiction film, Cinq Jours d’une vie in 1972. A decade and a half later, Yeleen was recognized as a masterpiece, hailed by Film Comment as “the best African film ever made.” Set in an indeterminate period among the Bambara people of Mali (Cissé’s homeland), Yeelen focuses on a spiritual battle waged between a father and a son. Drawing his tale from oral traditions, Cissé fashioned an innovative narrative style that combines visual elegance with allegorical storytelling to explore the conflicts that emerge between the desire for change and the need to preserve tradition.
