YOU WILL DIE AT 20

A village in Sudan: Sakina brings her newborn son to the sheikh for a blessing. But during the ceremony one of the dervishes falls to the ground, and the sheikh announces that the child will die at the age of twenty. The father cannot bear the curse and leaves the family. Sakina raises Muzamil alone, in mourning dress, overprotective, in a village that regards the boy as a living dead man. Muzamil learns the Quran by heart and counts the years, until he meets an old filmmaker who has returned from the wider world and shows him images of a life beyond the prophecy. “You Will Die at 20” (Sudan, 2019) is the feature debut of Amjad Abu Alala.

Abu Alala shot the film in Sudan in December 2018, in the early days of the uprising against the government; his hero’s struggle against a predetermined fate has also been read as an image of the country. At the Venice Film Festival 2019 the film won the Lion of the Future for best debut. “You Will Die at 20” was shown at Around the World in 14 Films in Berlin in 2019 in the Berlinale World Cinema Fund section.

Shown at the 2019 edition of Around the World in 14 Films.

All films 2019 · Film Archive