Event Details

Sleepwalking Land (Mozambique) and What A Wonderful World (Morocco)
The Magic of Cinema Film Series
Summary: Sleepwalking Land is Mozambique director Teresa Prata’s feature debut. In it, she explores both the impact of storytelling and the shape of things in her native Mozambique through the eyes of an elderly man and a youth whose lives intersect when the two seek refuge from one of the many wandering gangs that are a result of the country’s endless civil war. Striking up a friendship, the two men discover the diary of a dead refugee, which the young man reads aloud as a way of passing the time. Although the journal is filled with many horror stories related to the civil war, it also has some surprising details that give the younger man an unexpected sense of hope. He gains hope as well from the many other travelers they meet along their journey, each with his or her own story to share. Some are stark, some are uplifting and some are just plain bizarre, but all of them speak to the strength of a long suffering people and the redemptive power of story. Prata split her childhood between Mozambique, Brazil and Portugal and directed several acclaimed shorts before starting work on Sleepwalking Land. Variety has called it a “parable for a society struggling to cope with its evisceration.” Before directing this film, Prata made several experimental videos and installations. What A Wonderful World from Moroccan director Faouzi Bensaïdi has been called a new vision of an old culture, “unveiling an uncommon Casablanca caught in a world wide web of associations and consequences.” The story centers around three people —Souad, a prostitute; her best friend Kenza, a tough traffic cop; and Kamel, Souad's favorite customer, who just happens to be a contract killer who receives his hit orders via the Internet. When Kenza falls in love with Kamel, the two begin a bizarre courtship doomed by their disparate lines of work, and a persistent cyber–snooping hacker who stumbles upon the site where Kamel receives his murderous contracts. What a Wonderful World is Bensaïd’s second feature film. Two of his short films, The Wall and The Rain Line, won prizes at the Cannes and Venice International Film Festivals.
Contact: Bruce Hattendorf, 360-417-6238
Location: Little Theater (J-16)
Date(s): Friday, October 30, 2009
Time:6:00 PM - 10:00 PM

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