Cinema Releases - Macondo
Eleven-year-old Ramasan has come to Austria from Chechnya with his mother and two younger sisters. They live in the Viennese neighbourhood of Macondo, where numerous refugees and asylum seekers await a better life, under the close control of Austrian authorities. His father was killed in the conflict with the Russians, or at least that’s what they believe happened to him. Ramasan tries his best to take his father’s place, by looking after his sisters or tucking his mother’s stray hair back underneath her headscarf for instance. When he accidentally meets Isa, a friend of Ramasan’s father from the old days, Ramasan's life is thrown into disarray as he is both attracted to this new father figure and worried that he will get too close to his mother.
In her first feature-length drama, Sudabeh Mortezai portrays a Muslim boy caught in the divide between his ideals and the reality that surrounds him. A carefully observed, nuanced film that goes beyond the mere observation of refugees’ life to raise more profound issues regarding the notions of tradition, belonging, and guilt.
Offical Selection, Competition, Berlin Film Festival 2014
