Part of Weekend Classics: Lovers on the Lam
In this picaresque fantasy-drama, the disaffected young lovers Anta and Mory, fed up with Dakar, long to escape to the glamour and comforts they imagine France has to offer, but their plan is confounded by obstacles both practical and mystical. Alternately manic and meditative, TOUKI BOUKI has an avant-garde sensibility characterized by vivid imagery, bleak humor, unconventional editing and jagged soundscapes — and it demonstrates Mambéty’s commitment to telling African stories in new ways. With a stunning mix of the surreal and the naturalistic, Djibril Diop Mambéty paints a fractured portrait of the disenchantment of post-independence Senegal in the early 1970s.
TOUKI BOUKI was restored by the Cineteca di Bologna/L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory, in association with The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project and the family of director Djibril Diop Mambéty.
NOTE: TOUKI BOUKI contains multiple scenes of violence against animals.
“One of the most singular and striking debuts in the history of international cinema…TOUKI BOUKI’s kaleidoscopic set of sounds and images helped it to become a cult classic, as did a crucial 2008 restoration by the World Cinema Project, a program created by Martin Scorsese’s Film Foundation. The film’s influence extended to the very heights of pop culture in 2018, when Jay-Z and Beyoncé explicitly referenced the image of Mory and Anta astride a bedecked motorcycle for their On the Run II tour ads.” —Ashley Clark, Current
