Touba

Name: Touba
Director: Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi
Released: 2013

Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi 2013

“Touba” reveals a face of Islam essential in these divisive times. It chronicles the Grand Magaal pilgrimage of 1 million Sufi Muslims to the holy city of Touba, Senegal. This observational film takes us inside the Mouride Brotherhood: one of Africa’s most elusive organizations. Pilgrims travel from all over the world to pay homage to the life and teachings of Cheikh Amadou Bamba. His non-violent resistance to French colonial persecution in the late 19th century inspired a national movement: freedom of religious expression through pacifism. These are lessons the world can learn.

Add to Playlist

Add Bookmark

Bookmark List

Trailer

Running Time:	83 min.
Subject(s):	African Cinema and Culture, Colonialism, Ethnography, History, Immigration and Migration, Religion and Spirituality
Language(s):	Kinyarwanda, Wolof
Subtitles:	English
Director(s):	Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi
Producer(s):	Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi
Cinematographer:	Scott Duncan
Editor(s):	Eric Hendricks
Production Company:	Little Monster Films

Press

Indiewood

A humanist visual poem

Steve Rickinson
The Hollywood Reporter

A travelogue whose guide prefers to serve as a conduit for observation rather than as interpreter, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi's Touba offers scenes from an annual pilgrimage of Sufi Muslims in Senegal. Though its audience is limited to viewers already interested in the religious traditions of Western Africa and those willing to sit back and soak up the journey's sensory details, the doc will find admirers in special bookings and understandably won a cinematography award at this year's South By Southwest.

John DeFore
The Austin Chronicle

Touba is a documentary that doesn't pretend to know, or impart, all ... and that's rare and refreshing. For the sound design alone, this isn't to be missed.

Andy Campbell

Festival Participation

SXSW, New York African Film Festival - 2013
Special Jury Prize for Cinematography
DOC NYC, New York Documentary Festival - 2013

Distribution Company

Back to Film Summary

This Week’s Featured Films

Rising filmmaker Rahul Jain (Machines) returns to Delhi and explores the dramatic consequences of India's growing economy through stunning visuals, capturing not only a city in crisis but magnifying our collective climate realities
The 8th traces Ireland’s campaign to remove the 8th Amendment – a constitutional ban on abortion, forging a new progressive path when reproductive rights are threatened all over the world
In this poignant and deeply intimate documentary 3 kids temporarily removed from their parents find friendship and flickers of hope inside the worn walls of a remarkable orphanage in Eastern Ukraine, as a group of dedicated social-workers create moments of joy and respite
If birth and pregnancy are a lens on how society values its women, why has it become a fight that American women are losing?
I’m Doing My Job follows 6 young, female South Asian & Black emergency medical physicians’ lives throughout the pandemic in NYC.
As the nation faces the end of Roe v. Wade, follow three women leading formidable anti-abortion organizations to witness the enormous influence they wield at the intersection and future of abortion and politics in America.
A one-hour documentary that delves into the science of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and the birth of a new movement to treat and prevent toxic stress
More than half of the 80 million Millennials in America are politically Independent. Every single one of them will be needed if the planet is to avoid climate catastrophe
A harrowing look into the systemic discrimination against women in the fields of science
The first definitive, comprehensive documentary film on ADHD
A ground-breaking examination of the history of African Americans on the road from the early 1900’s through the 1960’s and beyond - a crucial window on issues of class, automobile culture, discrimination and national identity
Amin had an extraordinary child refugee journey from Afghanistan. He is facing a painful secret he kept hidden for 20 years, threatening to derail his life and his soon-to-be husband
The Price of Freedom exposes the hidden past of the American gun debate and reveals how the outsized political and cultural influence of the National Rifle Association divided a nation and changed the course of American history, costing countless lives along the way