Dry Season

• Daratt
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• Country: Chad
• Year: 2006
• Running time: 96 Minutes
• Genre: Drama
• Language: French and Arabic
• Sub-Titles:English Sub-Titles
• Other Countries: Belgium/France/Austria

Writer-director Mahamat-Saleh Haroun (Bye Bye Africa) has created a compelling character study in this elegant tale set in post-war Chad. Daratt doesn’t deal directly with the 40-year civil war, but with its aftermath and the consequences of the government’s amnesty for war criminals. Atim (Ali Bacha Barkai) is a 16-year-old whose father was killed before he was born. Atim’s grandfather is unwilling to live with the amnesty for his son’s murderer, and he sends Atim to the city to exact revenge upon the killer, Nassara (Youssouf Djaoro). Armed with his father’s pistol, Atim finds Nassara easily and shows up at the gate of his bakery as Nassara is meting out bread to hungry children. But face to face with his victim, something in Atim makes him put off the execution, and his mission is complicated even more when Nassara takes the young boy in as a surrogate son, and sets about teaching him to bake. Atim is determined to not soften toward the older man, even as he’s drawn into the home life of Nassara and his young pregnant wife (Aziza Hisseine). The film is a profound contemplation of the ideas of justice, revenge and forgiveness. Haroun writes, “What interests me is the landscape after the storm, life forging on stubbornly amidst fields of ruins and ashes. How can people carry on living together after so mush hate and violence?” Winner of a Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival.