Richard Sennett

The vast possibility of global-scale connections, made possible by the internet, gives rise to different notions about what community is. This documentary brings a vibrant and intrinsic theme to all our actions today: the links between the real and the virtual, and the intertwining and complementarity of these two universes.

In An Opera of the World, Malian scholar and filmmaker Manthia Diawara reflects upon the refugee crisis and the relationship between Europe and Africa. The film revolves around a 2008 performance of Bintou Were, a Sahel Opera, by Zé Manel Fortes with a libretto by Koulsy Lamko, in Bamako, around which Diawara builds a story about migration, interweaving interviews with documentary and archival footage. In the course of the film, one crosses into the world of opera from the tradition of sung wisdoms and sentiments, which has characterized West African culture for centuries. If opera is often understood as an über-European art form—the Gesamtkunstwerk invoked by Richard Wagner—Diawara chooses to meditate on its movement or migration as opposed to its expansion or totality. What happens when opera moves south, from Europe to Africa, just as so many people from that continent are moving north, in search of better lives?