Rostov-Luanda (1998)

Born in Mauritania and raised in Mali, Abderrahmane Sissako received a scholarship to study film in Moscow, after graduating from school. To learn Russian, he was sent to Rostov on the Don ... See full summary »

Director:

Abderrahmane Sissako

Writer:

Abderrahmane Sissako

1 win.

Storyline

Born in Mauritania and raised in Mali, Abderrahmane Sissako received a scholarship to study film in Moscow, after graduating from school. To learn Russian, he was sent to Rostov on the Don river for an entire year. On the endless train ride from Moscow to Rostov, he met Baribanga, an Angolan student who was going to the same language school. That year, far from home, the two Africans became friends. Almost two decades later, Sissako decides to search for Baribanga. Rostov-Luanda tells two stories, the search for the long-lost friend, that leads to an encounter with present-day Angola. It is also a personal retrospective, a film about departure and journeying, from Mauritania, to Mali and then to the former Soviet Union, and the new destination in the film, Angola. The film weaves histories of many countries and their intertwinement, the confusion of a continent becomes a sensual experience, and we perceive something of the history of Africa.

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Plot Keywords:

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Genres:

Documentary

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User Reviews

Meeting real Angolans on a quixotic journey

Rostov-Luanda's unobtrusive, languid documentary style disarms you at once. Setting off from his native Mauritania in search of a long-lost classmate from his revolutionary days in Moscow, Sissako begins a quixotic trip to Angola. Armed with just a dated and faded black-and-white class photo, he asks a motley assortment of people all over Angola whether they know where he can find his friend. But the quest to find his old classmate is just a pretext to allow his interviewees to bare their souls about their lives, their histories, their aspirations, troubles, memories in their strife-ridden country. Some are funny, some are sad, many are wistful and all are genuine. Sissako has a gift in finding people with commentary truly riveting in its ordinariness: an elderly Portuguese farming couple, an African schoolboy, a feisty African grandmother, a revolutionary intellectual.

If that's not enough for you, the cinematography is gorgeous, particularly the shots of empty road stretching out to the horizon when the filmmaker is on his way to the next stop on his journey.

Details

Country:

Angola Mauritania France Germany Belgium

Language:

French

Release Date:

25 January 2007 (Netherlands)

Also Known As:

Rostow-Luanda

Company Credits

Production Co:

Agence de la Coopération Culturelle et Technique, Instituto Angolano de Cinema, Ministère de la Coopération