The greatest African director who ever lived is Djibril Diop Mambéty. His first feature-length film, Touki Bouki, was completed in 1972. And its key image—a young man (Magaye Niang) and a young woman (Mareme Niang) on a motorbike with bull horns attached to its handlebars—was boosted by the ultimate black-power couple Beyoncé and Jay-Z for their 2018 On the Run II world tour. Mambéty’s niece, Mati Diop, who is famous for directing Atlantics, directed A Thousand Suns in 2013, a documentary about the male star of Touki Bouki, Magaye Niang, re-watching the film 40 years later. This work is a part of a short but excellent package of films organized by The Cooley Gallery and Converge 45. It’s called FROM AFAR. Its package also includes Edward Yang’s masterpiece Taipei Story, and, in my opinion, Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s best work Mekong Hotel, a slow but short horror story. I hear the days are getting cooler. This should make us smarter. And smart people watch the kind of films in FROM AFAR.
FROM AFAR is available on Northwest Film Forums’ website.
