An Opera of the World

The Malian-born Manthia Diawara’s film is based on the African opera “Bintou Were”, a Sahel Opera, which recounts an eternal migration drama. The “Bintou Were” opera, filmed on location in Bamako, in 2007, serves as a mirror for Diawara to build an aesthetic and reflexive story, through song and dance, about the current but timeless drama of migration between North and South, and the ongoing refugee crises. The film ponders the realities of cultural encounters through the concepts of métissage and hybridity. The success and limits of fusing African and European perspectives are tested by interlacing performances from the “Bintou Were” opera, past and present archival footage of migrations, classic European arias, and interviews with European and African intellectuals, artists and social activists, including Alexander Kluge, Fatou Diome, Nicole Lapierre and Richard Sennett.

Introduction by Eha Komissarov