Bamako

World premiering at the prestigious Cannes film festival and co-produced by Danny Glover (who is seen featured in cameo), Abderrahmane Sissako's Bamako is considered a landmark of African cinema. Melé, a bar singer, is married to Chaka, who is out of work. The couple lives in a poor neighborhood of Bamako, the capital of Mali, and is on the verge of a break-up. Meanwhile, a trial court has been set up in their courtyard, initiated by African civil society spokesmen asserting the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are to blame for Africa's poverty woes. Amid the witness pleas and testimonies—which touch on everything from corruption and mismanagement to European colonization —life continues on in the background. A deft and humanistic view of daily life in Mali with a devastating tableau of global capitalism and its ravaging effects on African societies.