Badou Boy & Touki Bouki at Arnolfini
£7/£5 concession

A event held at Arnolfini on Thursday 26th October. The event starts at 18:00pm.


Afrika Eye presents an evening celebrating the work of Djibril Diop Mambéty, maverick Senegalese filmmaker, still regarded as one of the most important African filmmakers of all time: a visionary, an aesthete, a political animal. But as a lone dissenter, allergic to institutional obedience, his work was deliberately ‘lost’ by those in power.

Join us for a double bill of two of his great films, Badou Boy (1970) and Touki Bouki (1973).

The screenings will be introduced by, and followed by a discussion with, Imruh Bakari, Senior Fellow, University of Winchester, and formerly Festival Director of Zanzibar International Film Festival (1999-2004).

Badou Boy

Director: Djibril Diop Mambéty

Senegal, 1970, 56m, Wolof with English subtitles

Rarely seen yet often talked about, Badou Boy, like its creator, has been an enigma. The plot looks at a “badou boy”, or a bad boy, who survives in the bustling city of Dakar in the late 1960s, a turbulent time. Part parody, part fable, the film borrows from the strategic and economic resources of the gangster genre and punk aesthetics in order to comment on the postcolonial experience in a newly independent nation.

Touki Bouki

Director: Djibril Diop Mambéty

Senegal 1973, French & Wolof with English subtitles

Paris… Paris… Paris… the dream that motivates young lovers, Mory and Anta, in their quest to escape the dead-end clutches of Dakar. Only when that dream becomes a tantalising reality do they realise that in pursuing their dream, a sacrifice must be made – a sacrifice far greater than either were expecting.

Djibril Diop Mambéty depicts with raw, visceral energy the apparently impending road wreck between the old folk customs, traditions and superstitions and the enforced adoption of European colonial attitudes, in a Senegal seemingly at a crossroads. In so doing he provides African cinema with one of its most original works of film art.

Tickets £7/£5 concession, available to purchase through our website and facebook event. http://www.afrikaeye.org.uk/touki-bouki-badou-boy/

Entry requirements: