ABU HARAZ
Poland, 2013
genre
documentary
running time
50′
directed by
Maciej J. Drygas
language
Arabic
subtitles
English
synopsis
Abu Haraz is a small village in the middle of the desert in North Sudan. The construction of a huge dam on the Nile has interfered with the age-old, natural rhythm of the lives of its residents. The filmmakers have spent several years with them, observing their vain attempts to fight the inevitable.
about the author
Maciej J. Drygas is a scriptwriter and documentary film director born in 1956 in Łódź. After graduating from the Film Directing Department at Moscow’s VGIK in 1981, he worked with Krzysztof Zanussi and Krzysztof Kieślowski as an assistant director. For his movies he has won a number of festival awards in, among others, Mumbai, Huston, Tai Pei, Monte Carlo, San Francisco, Nyon and Kraków. Currently, he teaches at the Film School in Łódź and the Laboratory of Reportage at Warsaw University.
Filmography: False Start (1981), Psychotherapy (1984), Hear My Cry (1991), State Of Weightlessness (1994), Voice of Hope (2002), A Day in The People’s Republic Of Poland (2005), The Outer Limits (2007), Hear Us All (2009), Violated Letters (2011), Abu Haraz (2013).
festivals, awards (selection)
Best Full-Length Documentary – Cinema Verite – Iran International Documentary FF 2013; 21st Camerimage International Film Festival, Poland, 2013; Festival dei Popoli – International Documentary Film Festival, Italy, 2013(screening)