Films
Close to the coast with the pirogues fishing canoes in Senegal, we are invited to a women’s sabar circle, a joyful exchange of teasing and pleasing audience with liberating moves to the rhythms of the drums. We see a drum lesson with children, drum making and market mingling with the renowned Senegalese Teranga, generosity in action. On washday, Babacar the choreographer and his dancers arrive to lead the girls through a Bara Mbaye, a song everybody knows. The well in another town brings up muddy water, but the dance goes on, it is a stabilizing force.
Director's Statement
When I saw sabar for the first time, I had an awakening experience which compelled me, many decades later, to return as a guest of a well known drummer family. Sabar takes us into the world of the griots, the storytellers, dance, rhythm and the body, and awakens Eros, the great connector. In our divisive times, the reality of the body’s magnetism can act as a joyful community builder.
Producer Senegal Laye Diedhiou
Abdoulaye Diedhiou lives in M’Bour, Senegal. Producer of audiovisual projects and director of www.itourismetv.com, television programs focused on tourism. He is also the manager of the group “Xalaas”, traditional sabar dancers and drummers, based in Senegal.
Photo: Laye in front of a historic canon used during the slave trade on the Island of Goré near Dakar, now the site of the House of Slaves
Praise for drumming bodies dancing
"Drumming Bodies Dancing provides a perspective into a dance form and culture whose representation is more than rare in academic dance studies -- nearly non-existent. With sensitivity and nuance, the film takes the inexperienced viewer from appreciation to understanding of the way that dance is an integral and important part of this culture, and allows space to reflect on one's own cultural connection with dance."
-Michelle Bernier
Executive Director & Artistic Co-Director
Sans Souci Festival of Dance Cinema
Screenings
Past:
November 22nd, 2025
Fall of Freedom screening
Electric Lodge
1416 Electric Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90291
October 16th - November 16th, 2025
Sans Souci Festival
Online
October 12th - October 26th, 2025
Inspired Dance Film Festival
Online (Doco Trio)
https://inspireddance.com.au/idff-2025
October 12th, 2025, 7pm
Inspired Dance Film Festival
Reservoir Cinema
Level 3/28 Albion St
Surry Hills NSW 2010
Australia
February 22nd, 2025, 1:30pm
Dance on Camera Film Festival
Leonard Nimoy Thalia Theatre
Symphony Space, 2537 Broadway
New York, NY 10025
November 6th, 2024
UCLA
Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance with Q&A
October 18th, 2024
Topanga Film Festival
Froggy's - 1105 N Topanga Canyon Blvd
Topanga, CA 90290
Screening in MBour, Senegal, the principal filming location
June 18th, 2024, 8pm GMT, preceded by a sabar starting at 6:30pm
Past, continued:
June 6th, 2024, 12pm
Piton International Film Festival
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
May 31st - June 2nd, 2024
R.E.D. International Dance, Art & Film Festival (RIFF)
Einavegen 1771
2843 Eina
Norway
May 3rd - May 26th, 2024
The International Black & Diversity Film Festival Toronto
Canada
May 17th, 2024, 6pm
UC Riverside Doundounba Festival 2024 with Q&A
Riverside, CA 92521
January 28th, 2024, 5pm
KAOS Network
4343 Leimert Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90008
November 10th, 2023, 5pm
Ethos Film Festival
The Eli and Edythe Broad Stage
1310 11th St
Santa Monica, CA 90401
September 2nd, 2023, 11am
Vidiots
4884 Eagle Rock Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90041
Falling For The Mountain
This is the intimate and urgent story of a family that must come together to steward their ancestral home in the majestic Swiss Alps in the face of urbanization and climate change. The film follows owners, farmers and neighbors, all with deep ties to this open wild that asks for protection.
Watch Falling for the Mountain:
Director Interview:
peace is possible
In 2001 Leon Berg and myself were sent to Israel by Bernie Glassman, Zen priest and founder of the now called Zen Peacemakers International (ZPI) to give introductory Council trainings all over the country. It was after the second Intifada. I was called to lead a council with Palestinian and Israeli women and filmed this clip at the end of it. The practice of listening deeply / spontaneous speaking is now integral to ZPI.
My father, a country doctor in Switzerland, reflects on his relationships with dying patients, his mother and life after death. He tells the story of his identification with Isaac and the death of my sister.
