They are auteurs different, from two ends of the world, yet alike with a poetic and patient approach to cinema. Their quest is even more similar, both 61-year-olds looking at the world with a ritualistic charm and an earthy flavour.
Their passion is not for cinema, but they work transcending the frames for life and people. Another similarity of theirs is their heavily accented English, with which IFFK 2025’s Lifetime Achievement Award winner Abderrahmane Sissako and Contemporary Filmmaker in Focus Garin Nugroho speak to TNIE.
The artistic nomad
Veteran African director Abderrahmane Sissako was in the news at IFFK for more than just the Lifetime Achievement award that he was conferred with at the 30th edition of the festival. Two of his movies — Timbuktu, an Oscar nominee, and Bamako, a court drama on IMF’s and World Bank’s role in Africa’s poverty — at IFFK were prevented from screening after the Union government had refused to provide an exemption screen to 19 films. Even earlier, his movies have seen it all — scathing criticisms as well as sky-high applause. The Mauritanian is, however, unfazed by all the noise and feels his life is beyond cinema.
“I am not passionate about cinema. To me, it is a profession that I do passionately,” says Sissako, who took up cinema primarily to “be loved by my mother more.”
“I had an older brother, Sherif, whom my mother used to be very fond of. When I heard her say that he is studying cinema, something clicked in me even as a very young boy. I felt taking it up would win me her fondness the way my older brother did.”
This longing remained with him just as love for his roots and moorings, and a sense of loss. This is reflected in his much-acclaimed film, Waiting for Happiness, the 2002 FIPRESCI winner at Cannes. The film was dedicated to his mother, who passed away on the day the film was finished. The portrayal of ethnic, rural African life found space in several of his other films, including the award-winning 1998 one, Life on Earth.
When a young Sissako launched himself into making movies in the mid-1980s after studying cinema at the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography in Russia, he felt the medium malleable enough to tell the stories he wanted to. Yet, there was an inherent tendency in him to shy away from showing his first film, The Game, a short he made for his graduation. (Though rejected at one festival, the film went on to fetch Sissako the prize for best short at the Giornate del Cinema Africano of Perugia in 1991.)
The reluctance, he feels, is probably due to a childhood cut up between two different worlds — one at Mali with his father and the other with a nomadic mother in Mauritania.
“The migration did have its effect on me,” says the director, also known as an ‘artistic nomad’. “It made me realise the importance of the people around me.”
This realisation has stayed with him althrough his works, with each one of them being tender portrayals of human life, even when set amidst conflicting situations — be it the struggles of a family against the jihadists (Timbuktu) or the colonial effects that mar African society (Bamako) or the affection between a native and an assertive migrant in his latest (Black Tea).
“In Africa, people are not familiar with the language of cinema as in India but the affinity one feels for fellow beings strikes a chord. To me, that is more important than how a cinema can be constructed from an idea,” says the director, who wishes he could move about in Thiruvananthapuram alone and freely but cannot do so because of “the language.”
“I like to connect with people I may not even know and in the process, I may shoot my frames too for my work,” he smiles.
His nomadic streak apart, the director is also deeply rooted in his land. “I have a forest patch back home, where I go to live amid nature, to aid in agriculture and development of the rural folk. There are very few avenues for education in remote areas. So, I try to help them be aware of what they are and what they have to be.”
“What turns me on is the beauty of people who do not expect anything but still believe they can give something to life. I see a light in them and am in awe because I don’t have the courage,” he says.
So when the people admire him, he says to himself that there are many who are worthy of this admiration. Sissako now hopes to return to his Mauritanian forest to organise activities for people who he feels need him.
“I may make movies too, but that will happen naturally,” says the director, who is back with latest after a 10-year hiatus since making the 2014 film Timbuktu. The veteran feels cinema is not an answer but a quest for possibilities.
“Black Tea’s protagonist Ayah portrays that. She travels in her mind, which is a beautiful way to travel. I know it because I have felt it as a 14-year-old. I love that quest for life.”
People & poetry
His films have a poetic aura. It is said to be too tough for people to digest. But Garin Nugroho feels it is a matter of perspective. “A film can be an extension of what we are and what is around us,” says the Indonesian, selected as IFFK 2025’s Filmmaker in Focus.
With indigenous culture a huge part of Nugroho’s films, the world in his frames contains bold streaks of multiculturalism. “My country may be predominantly Muslim, but it is in fact a place of many cultures —Hindu, Buddhist, and in some pockets, Christian. All these traditions are so intertwined in its psyche that it is tough to alienate them, and make Indonesia a monoculture as desired by hardline Islamists. Even when Islam entered Indonesia, they used puppetry and music to reach out to people,” he feels.
“I am a Muslim who feels Indonesia is more tuned to the Sufi traditions as against the efforts by some to bring Arabic laws in the country, giving Islam a Wahabi twist and changing the constitution as per. These efforts may seem imposing, but they are not going to win.”
Some of his movies, like Memories of My Body and Opera Jawa, reflect Indonesia’s ethnicity.
“The films derive much from the Indonesian versions of epics such as the ‘Ramayana’ and also straddle the questions of the LGBTQ community, which is why Memories was banned in five provinces.”
A deep interest in the arts has enriched his body of works, like Setan Jawa — a silent, black-and-white film that uses traditional gamelan orchestra, evoking Javanese mythology. Samsara, his latest, which is being shown at IFFK, centres around the mysticism of rituals. “I grew up in a heritage home where there was dance, music, and literature. I used to wake up to flower ceremonies, seasonal rituals, et al. It will reflect in my films,” he says.
Nugroho, like Sissako, also feels cinema cannot change but can raise a voice. However, his effort to effect changes does not stay just in frames. Working closely with global NGOs, he reaches out to tsunami victims of Aceh and children deprived of education.
“We must give them perspectives. Otherwise, they will be taken away from the essence of our land, where different blooms stay together to make a fragrant garden. My film Serambi was to find out how youngsters are influenced by divisive ideologies,” he says, adding Asians have an innate trait for multi-culturalism and oral traditions that could make them lovely filmmakers.
“My effort is also to teach filmmaking to people who have a taste for it,” signs off the veteran