EXCLUSIVELY AT IFI

It was perhaps also in recognition of Chadian director Mahamat-Saleh Haroun’s previous achievements (the masterly Abouna and Daratt) that this drama of pride and responsibility won the Jury Prize in Cannes last year. Here he refines his storytelling skills even further, lending a wise, almost elemental quality to its portrait of a swimming champ turned hotel-pool attendant who’s too wrapped up in his own world to grasp the full ramifications of the Civil War that’s fast encroaching on the capital, N’Djamena. When the premises move into private hands, there are changes afoot for the man everyone calls ‘Champ’ – and indeed for his son and co-worker
Abdel – which illuminate the national psyche just as much as the conflict that’s tearing the country apart. Haroun’s never preachy, but as Youssouf Djaoro’s protagonist faces chastening realisations, the film offers a vision of masculine self-absorption which chimes tellingly with the profile of sundry African leaders recently making the headlines. It’s a film of quiet power and insight. (Notes by Trevor Johnston).