Renowned visual artist Ali Cherri makes his debut in feature film with the enigmatic story of Maher, a Sudanese labourer who works in a brickyard on the banks of the Nile and, every evening, he wanders off into the desert to continue constructing a mysterious monster made of mud. This mesmerising allegory with its uncompromising political subtext entranced audiences at this year’s festival in Cannes.
Renowned visual artist Ali Cherri makes his debut in feature film with the enigmatic story of Maher, a taciturn Sudanese labourer who works in a brickyard on the banks of the Nile and, every evening, he secretly wanders off into the desert to continue building a mysterious construction made of mud. It’s 2019 and, while the protests staged by Maher’s fellow citizens against the reviled President al-Bashir come to a head, a disturbing monster starts to show signs of life… Cherri, a Parisian of Lebanese origin, follows up his two critically acclaimed shorts, here rounding off a trilogy that he tellingly describes as “geographies of violence”. This mesmerising allegory with its uncompromising political subtext entranced audiences at this year’s festival in Cannes.
Karel Och
80 min / Color, DCP
Director Ali Cherri
/ Screenplay Ali Cherri, Geoffroy Grison, Bertrand Bonello
/ Dir. of Photography Bassem Fayad
/ Music Robin "Rob" Coudert
/ Editor Isabelle Manquillet, Nelly Quettier
/ Art Director Abbas Al Khalifa
/ Producer Janja Kralj
/ Production KinoElektron
/ Coproduction Galerie Imane Fares, DGL Travel, Twenty Twenty Vision Filmproduktion GmbH, Trilema
/ Cast Maher El Khair
/ Sales Indie Sales
Ali Cherri (1976, Beirut). Selected filmography: The Disquiet (2013, short), The Digger (Al haffar, 2015, short doc.), The Dam (Le Barrage, 2022).
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Ali Cherri
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