Mali Blues

In the organizer's words:

Music shapes Mali's cultural identity. But it is under threat from radical Islamists. Islamist fanatics, who rule large parts of northern Mali, have banned dance and secular music. Many musicians have fled for fear of their lives. The film follows some of the country's stars on a musical journey into the disturbed heart of Mali: Fatoumata Diawara, a shooting star of the world music scene, has already performed in the Philharmonie in Cologne and at the Africa Film Festival as an actress in the feature films "Sia" and "Timbuktu"; Bassékou Kouyaté is a master of the ngoni, the traditional Malian lute; Ahmed Ag Kaedi is a Jimi Hendrix-influenced virtuoso on the electric guitar and leader of the Tuareg band "Amanar"; Master Soumy is a young rapper. With their music, they all stand up against fanaticism, hatred and violence and for a tolerant Islam. Their music gives people strength for change and hope for a common future in peace.

Beforehand there will be a darn tricky movie quiz with Sören Gäting at 18:00. I dare you!

Wanting to be a "window to the world" as a cinema also means looking away from Eurocentric and US-American cinema towards the stories of other continents, such as Africa. In the past, it was often not easy or too expensive to bring these non-mainstream films to the big screen due to a lack of distributors. Today, digital film distribution has made this much easier. An unbeatable advantage of digitalization are the various subtitles that are offered in addition to the original language.