Come Back to Sudan

Physical and emotional journeys are at the heart of these three remarkable short works from Zaire, Ethiopia, and Sudan. In the rhythmic Le clandestin, an Angolan stowaway emerges from a shipping container and into a strange Lisbon, where a police officer awaits to chase him relentlessly from street to street. Set among the Afar nomads of northeastern Ethiopia, Meteni: The Lost One follows a young woman as she moves her family and belongings across the hottest region on earth. Grinding maize by hand, tending to goats, she endures an even more difficult journey once she becomes pregnant. Moving from Colorado to Sudan, Come Back to Sudan tracks the voyage home of three “Lost Boys of Sudan” who had escaped the conflict in their native land and settled in the United States. Now, they return to villages they haven’t seen in a decade.

—Jason Sanders

• Le clandestin (José Zeka Laplaine, Zaire, 1997, 15 mins, In Portuguese and French with English subtitles, 35mm). Meteni: The Lost One (Wondessen Deresse, Ethiopia, 2002, 30 mins, In Amharic with English subtitles, DVD). Come Back to Sudan (Daniel Junge, Patti Bonnet, Sudan/U.S., 2008, 29 mins, In English, Bari, and Dinka with English subtitles, Beta SP)

• (Total running time: 74 mins, Color)