Waiting for Happiness (2002)

Open to the Public

Set in a Mauritanian coastal town at the edge of the Sahara Desert, Waiting for Happiness elliptically explores the gateways between Africa and Europe, tradition and modernity, childhood and adulthood. The cast of characters radiates around Abdallah, a 17-year-old intellectual distanced from the language and culture of his hometown; while he waits to emigrate to France, he struggles to communicate with the inhabitants and migrants around him. Abderrahmane Sissako weaves together disparate yet invariably intoxicating sights and sounds, teasing out the systems of exchange and translation that exist even when life seems at a standstill.

96 min

Abderrahmane Sissako, 2002, Mauritania/France, 35mm