A Screaming Man
Thursday  10 May  8.00 pm

 
 
    Director: Mahamat-Saleh     Haroun

  Cast: Diouc Koma, Emile    Abossolo M'Bo, Youssouf    Djaoro

   Production year: 2010    Countries: Chad, Rest of    the world

  Cert (UK): PG

  Runtime: 122 mins

Adam is a 55-year-old swimming-pool attendant at a smart hotel for upper-class guests, mainly foreigners. A former national swimming star known to everyone as "Champ", he has the stiff, proud bearing of a regimental sergeant major and is assisted by his handsome westernised son, 20-year-old Ahmed.  But with fluctuating fortunes in war-torn times, the hotel's new manager, Mrs Wang, is laying off staff and Adam is given the less dignified and remunerated job of gatekeeper. Father and son find themselves engaged in a silent generational warfare, complicated by the very real civil war that's engulfing the country. Betrayal, guilt, denial, faith and secrecy all roil about beneath the film's placid, almost wordless surface, which is beautifully observed with a stately, Ozu-like calmness. - Guardian