Les Maliens (A Film) shows long steady shots of urban and rural landscapes of different locations of Mali, without following an specific fictional or documentary script. The photographic image is crucial for the development of the film, both in its aesthetics as well as in its structure, as all sequences are independent and don´t follow a logical or temporary narrative. The film is done during a trip, adapting the traveller´s methodology of stopping, photographing that which gets her/his attention, and continuing her/his route. It shows and verifies the existence of a place in an undetermined moment and drives us to a detailed observation of the special features of that remote but real place. Vast landscapes, an african city, remains of colonial architecture, poverty, streets, the desert, human activity, air, water and earth. Lacking any depiction of concrete events, or time references, it reflects a distant, almost topographic point of view.
Time in the film is not being represented by the development of actions, but by the passing of time itself. The long-lasting actionless shots make us conscious of space but also of film´s own timing. Film is being used in a very essential manner, to depict light, matter and time, related to an interest for the world´s physiological appearance, for its natural and artificial structures, but also for a metaphysical point of view on thing´s permanence or mutability.