Program 5: Waiting for Happiness (Heremanoko)
Date: Thursday, April 28, 2011
Time: 6:00 p.m.
Location: UMBC, Lecture Hall 3
DIRECTIONS & CAMPUS MAP
Cost: Free
Waiting for Happiness (Heremanoko)
Abderrahmane Sissako
2002, DVD, 90 minutes, Mauritania/Mali
Mauritanian director Abderrahmane Sissako described his film as “a portrait of people in departure, who have to a certain extent already left, without having actually yet moved.” Engaging with the transitory state inherent to trajectories of exile, the narrative of the film centers on Abdallah, a young man who awaits his departure to Europe in Nouadhibou, on the Coast of Mauritania. Beyond the central character, the port city itself comes to embody a state of suspension, as existential and geographical in-betweenness is invoked through spare dialogue and striking cinematography.