Waiting for Happiness (Abderrahmane Sissako), Mauritania, 2002, dir: Abderrahmane Sissako, 95 min

Abderrahmane Sissako's Waiting for Happinessis a melancholic portrait of a transit city on the West African coast struggling against foreign influences. Abdallah returns to his homeland, and feels like a stranger to his own community and language, his mother vainly urges him to follow traditional customs while he's in town, convincing the young man to absorb as much local color before embarking for Europe. The film jumps forward in time at several points, and Abdallah eventually tries to leave the village. "One of the dramas of Africa is that its people are rarely confronted by its own image," says Sissako. Waiting for Happiness won the FIPRESCI Award for Un Certain Regard at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival "for its exquisite poetic depiction of the emotional and humorous complications that can arise in the midst of a simple life." ~ Josh Ralske, Rovi