The hottest ticket in the Malian capital, Bamako, today, involves the Inuit. As part of the Artcirq trip to the country, the Canadian embassy has organized free screenings in neighbourhoods all over the city of Atanarjuat, The Fast Runner. The film is the best-known work by Zacharias Kunuk's Igloolik Isuma Productions, with which the circus troupe collaborates. The film is playing to packed houses in low-income neighbourhoods with the help of the local cinema ambulant. (But local sensibilities must be respected: the lengthy scenes where the title character runs naked through the tundra must be censored. Thus an audience member is assigned to stand and hold a piece of paper over Atanarjuat's naughty bits – there have been a few alarming moments when the paper has been lowered a little too early, causing considerable consternation.)

Today, after meeting the local press, the Artcirq group set out to do some sight-seeing. They plunged into the choked streets of Bamako's Grand Marché, where one can buy everything from papayas to teapots to lingerie. Energized by the bustle, they put on a spontaneous display of acrobatics – to the delight of vendors and shoppers, who responded by showering them with small gifts.

Artcirq is scheduled to perform their stage show at the French Cultural Centre on Wednesday and Thursday evenings. They are also slated to perform at a large public school here in Bamako on Wednesday – but as word has spread about these unlikely stars, the phone is ringing off the hook at the embassy with other schools also pleading for a visit.

Under the heading "Your tax dollars at work," it bears noting that the Canada Council for the Arts helped Artcirq get here and that the Canadian embassy in Mali has done an extraordinary job organizing their visit. The deputy director of cooperation (which is what they call foreign aid these days) Darquis Gagné, who is supremely efficient and unfailingly cheerful, is himself a veteran of years of work in the Canadian north. He accompanied the group to Essakane and helped with everything from sourcing crates of bottled water to arranging homesick phone calls back to Igloolik. The embassy has also arranged for the screenings of the Kunuk film and the Artcirq performances here in Bamako, and is handling the myriad logistical challenges with great grace.

The Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) has a large aid program – $69 million in 2004-05 – in Mali, which is one of the 10 poorest countries in the world. Canadian funds support everything from the creation of rice farmers' unions to textbooks for primary schools to better tax collection. But the Artcirq group, a motley collection of shy but talented Inuit young people, provides a very different image of the country than Malians typically see – and this visit is fast proving to be a minor public relations triumph for Canada.