Mali / 1991 / 100mins / Drama / Bambara

When bush fires break out in a small village in Malo, Sidy, a young forestry commissioner from the city, must journey into the spiritual realm. Although Sidy has been trained in modern techniques, he accepts that only by finding an herbal cure, called the seventh canari, prophesied by the oracle, can the fires be stopped. His journey into the Dogon country, popularized by western anthropologists, is his final step towards linking the two worlds, traditional and modern. One of contemporary African cinema’s most gifted visual stylists, Adama Drabo moves seamlessly between reality, dreams, myth and even the supernatural, linking the story of Sidy to the fate of a nation.

Adama Drabo

Adama Drabo was born in Bamako, Mali in 1948. While teaching primary school, he began writing for the theater. In 1979, he entered Mali’s Centre National de Production Cinématographique (CNPC) and later served as Cheick Oumar Sissoko’s assistant director on two films, Nyamanton and Finzan. In 1988, Drabo directed his own short film, Nieba, la journée d’une paysanne (Nieba, A Day in the Life of a Peasant Woman). Ta Dona (1991) was his first feature as a director. It won the Prix Oumarou Ganda at the 1991 FESPACO. Adama Drabo passed away in 2009. Learn More