DIRECTOR: Amjad Abu Alala
PRODUCERS: Arnaud Dommerc, Michael Henrichs, Ingrid Lill Høgtun
PRODUCTION CO: Andolfi, DUOFilm, Die Gesellschaft DGS, Station Films, Transit Films
SCREENPLAY: Amjad Abu Alala, Yousef Ibrahim, based on the story 'Sleeping at the Foot of the Mountain' by Hammour Ziada
PHOTOGRAPHY: Sébastian Goepfert
EDITOR: Heba Othman
MUSIC: Amin Bouhafa
WITH:  Islam Mubarak (Sakina), Mustafa Shehata (teenage Muzamil), Moatasem Rashed (young Muzamil), Mahmoud Alsarraj (Sulaiman), Bonna Khalid (Naima), Talal Afifi (Alnour)​

FESTIVALS: Best First Feature, Venice 2019

REVIEWS

Condemned to an early death from birth, young Muzamil waits despairingly for the day he will turn 20 and die. His father, grief-stricken by the holy prophecy, has already abandoned him, while his mother mourns her son in the only way she knows how – to protect him from the world. Hope flickers in the Quran, which Muzamil is eventually allowed to study, and the gentle paternal friendship of Suleiman, a village elder who opens his eyes to the joys of cinema. As adulthood draws nearer for the teenager, we come to understand Muzamil’s fate is held not so much in the fear of dying, but living – a notion, neither spiritual nor secular in tone, that shrouds this haunting poem of a film.

– NZIFF 2020

“The visual assurance of You Will Die at Twenty is the most immediately notable element of Sudanese director Amjad Abu Alala’s accomplished feature debut. Beautifully composed and boasting the kind of sensitivity to light sources and color tonalities usually ascribed to top photographers, the film lovingly depicts the remote east-central region of Sudan as a quasi-magical place of sand, sky and the colors of the Nile… a touching, nonjudgmental depiction of people circumscribed by superstition.”

– Jay Weissberg, Variety

“Sensitive and stirring… [You Will Die at Twenty] makes both an emotional and visual imprint.” 

– Sarah Ward, Screendaily

FILM SOCIETY SCREENINGS

Canterbury
Monday, 8 August, 7.00pm

Dunedin     
Wednesday, 17 August, 7:30pm

Hamilton     
Monday, 29 August, 8.00pm

Carterton
Friday, 9 September, 7.30pm

Nelson     
Tuesday, 20 September, 6:00pm

Wellington     
Monday, 26 September, 6:15pm

Auckland     
Monday, 3 October, 6:15pm

Whanganui     
Monday, 10 October, 7:00pm

​Palmerston North     
Wednesday, 19 October, 6:00pm

Timaru     
Monday, 31 October, 6:00pm

AFRICAN CINEMA >>
African Cinema is presented in
​co-operation with the Institut Français and the Embassy of France