The first feature-length work from director Djibril Diop Mambéty, one of the most singular voices in cinema, Touki Bouki follows an idiosyncratic and restless journey of a young couple in Africa. Travelling across their home country of Senegal, the pair’s surreal encounters with its people are enmeshed with their desire for a new life in a dreamed-about France. The young lovers—Anty, a university student who always keeps her cool, and Mory, a countryside herder doubling as a clever trickster—converge with the clashing ideas of tradition and modernity in a tale set amidst Senegal’s tense transition between the past and the present. Bristling with the frenetic energy of a freewheeling myth, Touki Bouki and its seductive soundscape unfold as a surreal and visceral yearning for freedom, belonging, and a sense of home.

Touki Bouki was restored in 2008 by The World Cinema Foundation at Cineteca di Bologna/L’Immagine Ritrovata in association with the family of Djibril Diop Mambéty. The restoration was funded by Armani, Cartier, Qatar Airways, and Qatar Museum Authority.

Djibril Diop Mambéty (1945–1998, b. Senegal) studied acting and worked as a stage actor in his early years. Between 1969 and 1970, Mambéty directed and produced two short films. He released his first feature-length film, Touki Bouki (1973), at Cannes Film Festival and won the International Critics Award. The film has since been hailed as a classic in African cinema. Despite Touki Bouki’s success, Mambéty would not make another feature film until Hyenas in 1992.