Documentary
Grand Magal à Touba
Blaise Senghor · 1962
Synopsis
Every year, the faithful of the Mouride brotherhood come on pilgrimage to Touba, their religious capital, to the tomb of the founder, Sheikh Amadou Bamba. The film follows this great gathering, the Magal: the influx of pilgrims, the town overrun by the crowd, the devotions before the mausoleum. It shows side by side the gestures of faith and practices from an older stratum, which its presentation calls pagan, and lets us see what this Sufi festival owes to the land where it takes place.
Context
The film was written with Thomas Diop and produced with the support of the French Ministry of Cooperation; it runs for about twenty minutes, twenty-five according to some sources, and is spoken in French. It won a prize in Berlin in the very year of its release; the list of prizewinners gives it under the title Le Grand Magal de Touba. It was part of the African programme of the Cinéma du réel festival in 1996; the Institut français had it issued in 2016.
Who it is for
About twenty minutes, text in French, with no prior knowledge required. Anyone who knows nothing of Mouridism will see mainly a crowd; the rest comes on watching it again.
Prizes and reception
Silver Bear for short film at the Berlin festival in 1962, then shown again in Paris thirty-four years later.