Akounak Tedalat Taha Tazoughai "Purple Rain in the Saharan Desert"

Akounak Tedalat Taha Tazoughai

Starring guitarist Mdou Moctar, Akounak Tedalat Taha Tazoughai (English: "Rain the Color of Blue with a little Red in it") is a feature length fiction film, shot entirely in Agadez, Niger. Akounak tells the universal story of a musician trying to make it "against all odds," set against the backdrop of the raucous subculture of Tuareg guitar. The protagonist, real life musician Mdou Moctar, must battle fierce competition from jealous musicians, overcome family conflicts, and endure the trials of love - all while coming to terms with one of the biggest barriers: himself.

Akounak is a fictional tale with a story developed by Tuareg youth, written and produced for a Tuareg audience. Stylistically based on the model of Western rock-u-drama, the story has been written from the common experiences faced by Mdou and fellow musicians. Akounak is the first fiction film ever shot in the Tuareg language.

Both a homage to Purple Rain and The Harder They Come, Akounak is based on the universal hero, the struggle of a musician to overcome a series of conflicts. In execution, many techniques have been adapted from Poverty Row, Italian Neo-Realism, and the experimental films of Je an Rouch. While there are a plethora of films concerning the Tuareg guitar, all are documentaries. Akounak is the first fiction film to explore the scene in this format, in a musical film that has already caught the attention of the public in Niger.

Directed by Christopher Kirkley and filmed by cinematographer Jerome Fino, the film was co-written by Mdou Moctar.
2015, 75 min

Christopher Kirkley is a music collector and archivist focused on the Sahel of West Africa. His work documents popular musics and cultural phenomena of local tradition with transglobal influence. Via filmmaking, field recordings, interviews, photography, mp3 archiving, cellphone data collection, the project experiments in cross cultural communication. He releases records under the label Sahel Sounds in conjunction with artists across six countries.