(Black Tea by Abderrahmane Sissako © Olivier Marceny / Cinéfrance Studios / Archipel 35 / Dune Vision)   By M.R. D’Amico   Even before its world premiere at Berlinale 2024, Black Tea had generated strong interest among major international distributors, a promising start for the film’s journey into the global market. Mauritanian director Abderrahmane Sissako, after the amazing success of his first Oscar-nominated film Timbuktu in 2014, embarks here...

  Don't go see Timbuktu expecting revival of Kismet. Abderrahmane Sissako's latest film offers a somewhat more subdued portrait of Mali's spiritual and intellectual capital, one where music is banned. So are soccer, cigarettes, laughter and unveiled women, among other prohibitions being slapped on local citizens in 2012, as mujahideen spread their brand of Sharia to the West African nation's northern tier. We first meet these zealots barreling across the desert in a pick...