Namibian Premiere: „A Screaming Man“ by Mahamat-Saleh Haroun, on 11. April 2012, 18h30 at FNCC

On Wednesday, 11 April 2012 at 18:30h AfricAvenir & Franco Namibian Cultural Centre present the Namibian Premiere of the Chadian film, winner of the prestigious Jury Prize at Cannes Film Festival "A Screaming Man" by Director-Screenwriter Mahamat-Saleh Haroun (Chad-Belgium-France 2010 | 92min).

Date: 11. April 2012, Time: 18h30
Venue: FNCC, 118 Robert Mugabe Avenue
Entrance: Free

AfricAvenir and the FNCC thank the Alliance Francaise for making this event possible. 
 
About the film
In present-day war-torn Chad, Adam, a former swimming champion, is a pool attendant at a smart N’Djamena hotel. His grown-up son Abdel helps him out, but when the hotel is taken into new ownership, it is Abdel who is given the job and Adam is demoted to the post of gatekeeper. Hurt and resentful, he feels socially humiliated. Meantime, with the country mired in civil war and rebel forces attacking the government, the authorities are demanding that
citizens contribute money or volunteer for the war effort. Adam is penniless, and pressurised by the District Chief, he commits a terrible act of betrayal. 

In his recent films Mahamat-Saleh Haroun (Abouna, Daratt) has developed a style of measured, contemplative storytelling that brings a deceptive air of calm to the simultaneously unfolding personal and national tragedies in A Screaming Man. Cinematographer Laurent Brunet’s striking widescreen images and Wasis Diop’s evocative score contribute much to the film’s elegant simplicity, and Youssouf Djaoro gives a quietly compassionate performance as the father who acts in haste, with devastating consequences.

About the Director
Director-Screenwriter Mahamat-Saleh Haroun was born in Abéché, Chad, in 1961. After being hit in the leg by a sniper during civil strife in the 1980s, he fled to France, where he studied cinema in Paris. He scored significant critical hits with his features “Abouna” (2002), which won several awards at FESPACO 2003 and “Daratt” (2006), the later competing in the Venice Film Festival and winning five prizes. n“Un homme qui crie” is his fifth feature and was not only the first ever Chadian entry in the Cannes Film Festival’s main competition, but it also won the prestigious Jury Prize.nThe social and political problems that have marked Chad’s have been central to all of Haroun’s films. Representative for these problems is Chad’s civil war; however, instead of analyzing the civil war itself, Haroun keeps it in the background, preferring to focus on the effect it has on the lives of individuals, their families and their friendships. Haroun has described his motivation as a filmmaker as follows: “Cinema is a resistance against civil war. By filming people and telling their story, you are resisting […] We need peace”.