“A courtroom drama with a difference… a light touch, a dry wit, and vast sympathy.” —Richard Brody, The New Yorker
“[An] intimate, urgent and wildly imaginative indictment of post-colonial economic policies in Africa.” —Ann Hornaday, The Washington Post
“Bamako is an attack on globalization that is endlessly cogent, confrontational -- and, best of all, as captivating as it is illuminating.” —Kevin Thomas, The Los Angeles Times
Wednesday, March 11, 6:00 p.m. & Sunday, March 15, 12:00 p.m. | This moving docudrama unfolds in a courtyard in Mali’s capital, where an extraordinary trial is convened: African civil society brings a case against global financial institutions for the devastation wrought by structural adjustment and neoliberal governance. As testimony proceeds, the film weaves between legal argument, everyday domestic life, and moments of lyrical abstraction. Neither conventional documentary nor fiction, Bamako uses the intimacy of shared space to render global inequality legible at a human scale, offering a formally inventive and politically incisive meditation on debt, sovereignty, and postcolonial responsibility.
African Cinema: From Independence to Now Lecture Series | January 28–May 17, 2026
This film series explores 65 years of African cinema, from anti-colonial resistance to digital reinvention. Through 14 films from across the continent, African filmmakers reimagine the medium as a tool for decolonization, self-representation, and artistic innovation, connecting the political with the poetic. Presented in collaboration with the School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s Art History, Theory, and Criticism department. Lecturer: Delinda Collier, Professor of Art History. Synopses by Delinda Collier. Select titles offered with encores; encores do not include lecture.
The Film Center is ADA accessible. This presentation will be projected without open captions. The theater is hearing-loop equipped. For accessibility requests, please email filmcenter@saic.edu