In the fictional drama “Timbuktu” (2014) a female singer is punished for her music, 40 lashes for singing and 40 lashes for being in the same room of her male accompanist.  The film’s director and co-writer Abderrahmane Sissako says, “It is absurd to try to forbid music,” he says, “because if you try to suppress it, people will sing in their head.”  “Timuktu” received the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury and the Francois Chalais Prize at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival and is nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 87th Academy Awards.

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