Raphaël Grisey, Bouba Touré | 2022 | France, Mali | 123’ | digital I French & Soninké spoken, English Subtitles

This film focuses upon the extraordinary life story of Bouba Touré. An activist and photographer, Touré was one of the founding members of the radical Malian farming cooperative Somankidi Coura formed in Paris in 1977. Largely drawn from a rich personal archive, the film was co-directed with French artist Raphaël Grisey and charts the civil rights movement in France and the interwoven anti-colonial liberation struggles on the African continent.

Bouba Touré’s photographic practice centred on documenting the lives and struggles of migrant workers, using image-making as a way to present alternatives to the predominant colonial gaze. The film is an assemblage of personal documentation of Bouba Touré’s activities: personal diaristic encounters; organised protests; at work on the farming cooperative site in Mali. This material, both still and moving, is enriched with other archival sources to trace a clear narrative of the anti-colonial West African diasporic project operating out of Paris.

Followed by a conversation between Raphaël Grisey and Abiba Coulibaly
With the support of Institut français du Royaume-Uni