African cinema is back at the Venice film festival after nearly 20 years with Chad's "Daratt", a story about coming to terms with the horrors of civil war inspired by director Mahamat-Saleh Haroun's own experience.
"Daratt" is the first Chadian film in the history of the Venice festival to be included in the main competition and the first African production vying for the top Golden Lion award since 1989.
In an understated style, the film tells the tale of Atim, a 16-year-old Chadian boy who sets out to kill the man who murdered his father during the country's civil war. When he does find him, he ends up working for him as an apprentice baker, plotting his revenge but also struggling to draw a line under the past and forgive.
Haroun, born in 1960, had an uncle abducted, was himself wounded and eventually fled his homeland, which has a long history of conflict and political instability, in a wheelbarrow.
He says he knew "a great many" of the 40,000 people believed to have been killed under former ruler Hissene Habre and that "Daratt" partly draws on his personal experience.
"I don't know how many people in this room have seen a man being executed at point blank," he told reporters after "Daratt" was presented in Venice this week. "I did when I was 16."
"I was there when the civil war started. You find that your neighbour who lives next door and had never given you a reason to be suspicious grabs a gun and transforms himself," he said. The conflict that forced Haroun to flee has officially ended, but violence still plagues the country. Shooting for "Daratt" started in Chad on April 3. Ten days later, rebels were attacking the capital N'djamena and the film had to be temporarily put on hold.
"The tragedy of civil war is that it never ends, it cannot end until all the score-settling is over," Haroun said.
"Daratt", which is competing for Venice's top prize with 20 other films, including four big US titles, cost just 1.5 million euros - compared to the $200 million budgets a big American production can reach. Haroun, who won the award for best first film in 1999 in Venice with "Bye Bye Africa", said he was happy to be back in the main competition.
"People see this continent as the banlieue (suburbs) of the world, but there are quite a few of us who think it is up to the banlieue sometimes to bring life to the centre of town," he said. "We must ensure that African cinema is as visible as other films and that it is regarded as cinema before being regarded as African."
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