"We don't need protection." Mubi has unveiled an official US trailer for the African drama Lingui: The Sacred Bonds, which originally premiered at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, playing in the main competition. The film is the latest by an award-winning filmmaker from Chad named Mahamat-Saleh Haroun, best known for his other films Our Father, Dry Season, A Screaming Man, Grigris, and A Season in France. Amina, a practicing Muslim, lives with her daughter, 15-year-old Maria. When Amina learns Maria is pregnant and wants to abort the child, they face an impossible situation in a country where abortion is legally and morally condemned. The cast features Achouackh Abakar, Rihane Khalil Alio, Youssouf Djaoro, Briya Gomdigue, and Hadje Fatime N'Goua. This earned great reviews at festivals, saying "Haroun takes a quiet, meditative approach to storytelling." If you're into slow cinema this is for you. Here's the US trailer (+ poster...
- 12/10/2021
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
These are the submissions for the international film Oscar by country. The deadline for entries was Nov. 1. A shortlist of 15 films will be announced Dec. 21 and the nominations will come out Feb 8. The 94th Academy Awards will take place on March 27 at the Dolby Theatre. The Academy has not yet released a final list of entries; Variety compiled this list from individual country’s announcements.
Albania
Two Lions Heading to Venice
Dir. Jonid Jorji
Key cast: Vasjan Lami, Alessandra Bonarotta
Logline: A pair of filmmakers heading to the Venice festival are sidetracked from their destination after meeting two adult film actors.
Prodco: Bajo Films
Algeria
Heliopolis
Dir. Djaafar Gacem
Key cast: Souhila Mallem, Mehdi Ramdani, Cesar Duminil
Logline: True story of an uprising in the Algerian town of Guelma that was violently put down by the colonial French rulers.
Prodco: Hewes Pictures
Argentina
The Intruder
Dir. Natalia Meta
Key cast: Guillermo Arengo,...
Albania
Two Lions Heading to Venice
Dir. Jonid Jorji
Key cast: Vasjan Lami, Alessandra Bonarotta
Logline: A pair of filmmakers heading to the Venice festival are sidetracked from their destination after meeting two adult film actors.
Prodco: Bajo Films
Algeria
Heliopolis
Dir. Djaafar Gacem
Key cast: Souhila Mallem, Mehdi Ramdani, Cesar Duminil
Logline: True story of an uprising in the Algerian town of Guelma that was violently put down by the colonial French rulers.
Prodco: Hewes Pictures
Argentina
The Intruder
Dir. Natalia Meta
Key cast: Guillermo Arengo,...
- 11/11/2021
- by Shalini Dore
- Variety Film + TV
Mubi, the art house streamer and theatrical distributor, has acquired the North American rights to “Lingui, The Sacred Bonds” out of the Cannes Film Festival.
“Lingui” is an abortion drama from the country of Chad and is directed by Mahamat-Saleh Haroun, and the film premiered last week in the main competition for the festival as it competes for the Palme D’Or.
Mubi also acquired the UK, Ireland, Latin America and Turkey distribution rights to the film.
“Lingui, The Sacred Bonds” is set in the outskirts of N’Djamena in Chad, where a Muslim woman named Amina lives alone with her 15-year-old daughter Maria and who discovers that her teenage daughter is pregnant and does not want this pregnancy. In a country where abortion is not only condemned by religion, but also by law, Amina finds herself facing a battle that seems lost in advance.
Haroun also wrote the screenplay,...
“Lingui” is an abortion drama from the country of Chad and is directed by Mahamat-Saleh Haroun, and the film premiered last week in the main competition for the festival as it competes for the Palme D’Or.
Mubi also acquired the UK, Ireland, Latin America and Turkey distribution rights to the film.
“Lingui, The Sacred Bonds” is set in the outskirts of N’Djamena in Chad, where a Muslim woman named Amina lives alone with her 15-year-old daughter Maria and who discovers that her teenage daughter is pregnant and does not want this pregnancy. In a country where abortion is not only condemned by religion, but also by law, Amina finds herself facing a battle that seems lost in advance.
Haroun also wrote the screenplay,...
- 7/13/2021
- by Brian Welk
- The Wrap
Mubi, the London-based streamer and theatrical distributor, has acquired North America, U.K. and more territories on Mahamat-Saleh Haroun’s “Lingui, The Sacred Bonds,” a highlight of the Cannes Film Festival competition.
The powerful Chadian abortion drama has received unanimous critical praise and is being talked about as a potential Palme d’Or winner at the midpoint of the festival. On top of the U.S. and the U.K., Mubi has acquired the film for Ireland, Latin America and Turkey.
Penned by Haroun, “Lingui, The Sacred Bonds” is set on the outskirts of N’djamena in Chad, where Amina lives with her 15-year-old daughter Maria. Her fragile world collapses when she discovers that her daughter is pregnant and does not want the pregnancy, in a country where abortion is not only condemned by religion, but also by law.
The film explores a bond between a mother and her daughter,...
The powerful Chadian abortion drama has received unanimous critical praise and is being talked about as a potential Palme d’Or winner at the midpoint of the festival. On top of the U.S. and the U.K., Mubi has acquired the film for Ireland, Latin America and Turkey.
Penned by Haroun, “Lingui, The Sacred Bonds” is set on the outskirts of N’djamena in Chad, where Amina lives with her 15-year-old daughter Maria. Her fragile world collapses when she discovers that her daughter is pregnant and does not want the pregnancy, in a country where abortion is not only condemned by religion, but also by law.
The film explores a bond between a mother and her daughter,...
- 7/13/2021
- by Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
The dilemma of a poor 15-year-old girl seeking an abortion in an Islamic African country where the practice is both taboo and illegal is dramatized with understated compassion in Lingui, The Sacred Bonds.
Veteran Chadian director Mahamat-Saleh Haroun lays out the tale in a steady manner that maintains an appealing natural rhythm rather than an imposed melodramatic one. The topicality of this Cannes Film Festival competition entry should help it navigate to receptive specialized venues internationally.
The first thing Lingui has going for it is that it tells a story you’ve very likely never seen before. Set in a colorful, dusty district outside the city of N’djamena, the tale centers on Anima (Achouackh Abakar Souleyman) and her daughter Maria (Rihane Khalil Alio), with the mom squeaking by making baskets while her daughter attends an Islamic-based girls’ school.
When the truth of Maria’s situation becomes known, she makes...
Veteran Chadian director Mahamat-Saleh Haroun lays out the tale in a steady manner that maintains an appealing natural rhythm rather than an imposed melodramatic one. The topicality of this Cannes Film Festival competition entry should help it navigate to receptive specialized venues internationally.
The first thing Lingui has going for it is that it tells a story you’ve very likely never seen before. Set in a colorful, dusty district outside the city of N’djamena, the tale centers on Anima (Achouackh Abakar Souleyman) and her daughter Maria (Rihane Khalil Alio), with the mom squeaking by making baskets while her daughter attends an Islamic-based girls’ school.
When the truth of Maria’s situation becomes known, she makes...
- 7/13/2021
- by Todd McCarthy
- Deadline Film + TV
In Chad, whose two main languages are Arabic and French, “lingui” is a distinct term meaning a “bond or connection”; the film’s alternate title gives it a more pious hue—the “sacred bonds.” But what’s fascinating and most novel about African cinema great Mahamat-Saleh Haroun’s new drama is the lack of an overtly religiose aura: the bonds created by its generation-spanning units of women are uplifting and resilient, while sought independently from Chad’s ruling, patriarchal class. To compare with conditions in the West, an analog would be to radical women’s networks, or even experiments in collective living and solidarity like communes.
Lingui, the Sacred Bonds is a glossier, more expensive-looking film than Haroun’s prior work; it has a slightly off-putting, color-corrected digital sheen, and less emphasis on the negative space present in the environment—all those hulking deserts and azure skies. Compared to the...
Lingui, the Sacred Bonds is a glossier, more expensive-looking film than Haroun’s prior work; it has a slightly off-putting, color-corrected digital sheen, and less emphasis on the negative space present in the environment—all those hulking deserts and azure skies. Compared to the...
- 7/9/2021
- by David Katz
- The Film Stage
One of the very few African filmmakers to have their work distributed in Europe and the U.S., Mahamat-Saleh Haroun has made six feature-length films, and all but one are set in Chad. But his latest, Cannes competition entry “Lingui, the Sacred Bonds,” is noteworthy for another reason. The Paris-based Haroun returned to his native Chad to tell a story about a prickly issue: abortion, which is taboo in the country. It’s also his very first film with female leads since he launched his career almost 30 years ago, and here he has made a film that’s sensitive to feminist causes in Chad.
The move was prompted by Haroun’s desire to challenge Chad’s ruling patriarchy and specifically the country’s strict laws on abortion. “Unwanted pregnancies are becoming an increasingly important problem,” he said in a recent interview with IndieWire. “There are more and more reports of people discovering abandoned newborns,...
The move was prompted by Haroun’s desire to challenge Chad’s ruling patriarchy and specifically the country’s strict laws on abortion. “Unwanted pregnancies are becoming an increasingly important problem,” he said in a recent interview with IndieWire. “There are more and more reports of people discovering abandoned newborns,...
- 7/8/2021
- by Tambay Obenson
- Indiewire
“We are all brothers in Islam. Anyone with a problem can come to talk.” With these words, a local imam offers supposed comfort and counsel to troubled single mother Amina (Achouackh Abakar Souleymane), not considering that addressing her as his “brother” might not be the most welcoming invitation. Least of all for the problem Amina is nursing: Her 15-year-old daughter, Maria (Rihane Khalil Alio), is pregnant, and has no desire to bear the child. When, later on, a kindly midwife declares that Amina is “like my sister now,” that simple term of address is like a fresh supply of oxygen. In “Lingui,” a brief, quietly forceful new film from veteran Chadian director Mahamat-Saleh Haroun, Amina and Maria are faced with a man’s world at every turn; how they carve a woman’s one out of it makes for startling viewing.
For Haroun, “Lingui” is a bracing return to form...
For Haroun, “Lingui” is a bracing return to form...
- 7/8/2021
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
It’s been eight years since director Mahamat-Saleh Haroun was last in the Cannes Film Festival’s main competition lineup with his 2013 drama “Grisgris,” and it’s no surprise that the filmmaker from Chad, in Central Africa, is back this year with “Lingui, the Sacred Bonds” — after all, the director has been in the Cannes lineup five times, and he won the jury prize for “A Screaming Man” in 2010.
But here’s what is surprising, and dismaying: In the six festivals between “Grisgris” and “Lingui,” Cannes’ main competition has included a grand total of three African films: “Timbuktu” in 2014, “Yomeddine” in 2018 and “Atlantics” in 2019. Others have screened in various sidebars and out of competition, but for the past decade, Cannes’ marquee section has been almost entirely devoid of work from Africa.
While Haroun shouldn’t have to carry the load on the Croisette for an entire continent, he is an...
But here’s what is surprising, and dismaying: In the six festivals between “Grisgris” and “Lingui,” Cannes’ main competition has included a grand total of three African films: “Timbuktu” in 2014, “Yomeddine” in 2018 and “Atlantics” in 2019. Others have screened in various sidebars and out of competition, but for the past decade, Cannes’ marquee section has been almost entirely devoid of work from Africa.
While Haroun shouldn’t have to carry the load on the Croisette for an entire continent, he is an...
- 7/8/2021
- by Steve Pond
- The Wrap
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