Dry Season (2006 film)

Dry Season Arabic: دارات, romanizedDaratt; French: Saison sèche) is a 2006 film by Chadian director Mahamat Saleh Haroun.

Dry Season
Poster
ArabicDaratt
Directed byMahamat Saleh Haroun
Written byMahamat Saleh Haroun
Produced byAbderrahmane Sissako
Mahamat Saleh Haroun
StarringAli Bacha Barkaïm
Djibril Ibrahim
Aziza Hisseine
Khayar Oumar Defallah
Fatimé Hadje and
Youssouf Djaoro
CinematographyAbraham Haile Biru
Edited byMarie-Hélène Dozo
Music byWasis Diop
Release date
  • 27 December 2006 (2006-12-27)
Running time
96 minutes
CountriesFrance
Belgium
Chad
Austria
LanguagesArabic
French
Budget1,503,903[1]

The film was one of seven films from non-Western cultures commissioned by Peter Sellars' New Crowned Hope Festival to commemorate the 250th birthday of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Inspiration for the themes of revenge and reconciliation was taken from Mozart's La clemenza di Tito.

Darratt won the Grand Special Jury Prize at the 63rd Venice International Film Festival, as well as eight other prizes at Venice and the Panafrican Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou.

Plot

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Set in the wake of the long Chadian civil war, 16-year-old Atim (Ali Bacha Barkai) is sent by his grandfather to the city to kill Nassara (Youssouf Djaoro), the man who murdered his father before Atim's birth. Atim, carrying his father's gun, finds Nassara running a bakery. Unexpectedly, the taciturn Nassara takes Atim under his wing as the son he never had and begins teaching him how to run the bakery. The emotionally conflicted Atim is drawn into the life of Nassara and his pregnant wife (Aziza Hisseine), before a finale that Variety described as "sharp, fast and unexpected."[2]

Notes and references

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  1. ^ Daratt, French Ministry of Foreign Affairs
  2. ^ Dry Season by Deborah Young, Variety, September 1, 2006
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