Santa Cruz Film Festival 2009

The links between Irish music and that of North and West Africa have never been more eloquently told than in this absorbing new documentary.

Traditional Irish musician Paddy Keenan and Hothouse Flowers frontman Liam O’Maonlai journey across the country of Mali known as “The Heart of Africa.” They’re bound for the annual music event “Festival au Desert” near Timbuktu, where they encounter a riot of colour, dance and a fusion of tribal traditions. Along the way they meet and jam with local musicians, performing with the likes of Afel Bocoum, Ali Farka Touré and Toumani Diabate. The Irish journeymen encounter the soul of Mali (its people) and discover how powerfully exotic, and endangered, a country this is. Stunningly photographed, the country is captured as beautiful, vibrant, colourful and culturally rich, eschewing the typically dark and dismal portraits of the continent which we are unfortunately much accustomed to.

A musical excursion through a country whose beauty and culture is under threat from state persecution, drought and the steady encroachment of the Sarahan sands. A unique work, which is well-told and unexpectedly moving in parts, Dambé: The Mali Project is a feast for music lovers, and an educational journey into the beauty - rather than the darkness - of Africa’s heart.