This ground-breaking African film from Abderrahmane Sissoko is set in Bamako, a village in Mali where an impromptu court has been set up to take proceedings against the World Bank and the IMF.

The West stands accused of contributing to Africa's woes by asking for "structural adjustments" in those countries unable to pay their interest-laden debts.

These adjustments, the witnesses testify, have destroyed the economies of African countries, particularly because of the enforced privatisation of health, education and transport facilities, which were then sold to Western multinationals.

The result rendered vast numbers of the poor worse off than before and made thousands of public servants redundant.

Sissoko called on judges, lawyers and ordinary witnesses to testify and let them say what they wanted.

It is admitted that a large portion of the African elite are either corrupt or party to the West's ideas, so that Africa has its share of the blame.

But the testimonies reflect a situation hardly changed by the recent cancelling of debt by Europe and America, with life expectancy declining, child mortality rising and literacy dropping in many Sub-Saharan African countries.

The didactic nature of it all is leavened by Sissoko's portrayal of village life going on as usual while the court sits.

People flit in and out of the film as they normally would since the trial takes place in the courtyard of a house containing many families.

Less successful are scenes from an imaginary Western, in which the characters are black and which stars Danny Glover and the Palestinian director Elia Suleiman.

Still, this is a thought-provoking film, told in a traditional African form and unique in the often fraught annals of African film-making.