Atla
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Synopsis:
Two Bedouins, a white woman and two heavily packed camels traveling by feet through the Sinai desert, A rough and impressively desolate area. They are entering a world of emptiness and silence.
After days of exhaustion and heat the woman gets sick. The Bedouins prepare special tea for her and pray to Allah.
Because of the limited amount of water, they have to go on. The days are passing by with a rhythm of walking, climbing mountains, pitch a camp, the daily talks between the Bedouins about food and the struggle of life… They are continually going on… forward, up!
Atla!
This isn’t Waiting for Godot, this is Going to Godot.
(NRC handelsblad, 16 nov 2005)
... for everybody who wants to see the coming Raymond Depardon – retrospective in the Filmmuseum lumped together, or at least Depardon’s desert-films. And all this just as a stimulus to let yourself be submerged in 105 minutes of images of sand. Rocky sand. Sandy sand. Gravel sand. And the sound of footsteps on sand: crunching, shambling, determined. Whereto are those 2 Bedouin-men and that white woman heading in the Sinai? Does it matter? They are moving, forward. As pointless as irrevocable. This isn’t Waiting for Godot, this is Going to Godot.
Dana Linssen
Festival screenings: NFF (2005), PEK (2005), Split (2006), ECU (Parijs 2007), Somnio Film Festival 2011
“... a radical environment, needs a radical approach.” (Dutch Film Fund)
“ a meditative journey through the desolate Sinai. “ (Dutch Film Festival)
cast:
Lizan ten Have
Aid Salama Jim'a
Salama Selim Rab'a
Swelem Farraag Eïd
lenght 105min
camera, sound, editing: Nico Bunnik
editing advice: André Bijma