Private Project

AHMEDOU

"Ahmedou understands things and knows how to help others understand them. His help is not like that of others, it is different."
Mauritania - The perpetual roar of carts on rusty tracks that disappear on the desert horizon. The bleating of goats suffering from heat and thirst, together with young people on a journey dreaming of Europe. Freight wagons with Bedouins and strong mint tea. The train, carrying tanks full of water and fuel, cuts across the desert landscape from the endless horizon of sand. In the mud huts along the tracks people live a humble life bordering on poverty. The water and fuel tank is the fundamental unit of measurement for survival. The train is the main axis of life for the Bedouins who take a breath in the shade of the heat and in the surroundings of tranquility.

  • tommaso cotronei
    Director
  • tommaso cotronei
    Producer
  • Project Type:
    Documentary
  • Runtime:
    45 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    April 18, 2024
  • Production Budget:
    3,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    Mauritania
  • Country of Filming:
    Mauritania
  • Language:
    Arabic
  • Shooting Format:
    digital
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - tommaso cotronei

Tommaso Cotronei was born in a small town in Calabria, in Southern Italy, where, still very young, started to work in the fields with his parents in the rural countryside. Struck by a place that gives no hopes but backbreaking labour, no chances of wishing for something different, Cotronei finds the strength to flee from his situation at 21. He spends several years looking for something that would suit his hopes while temporarly working as a manual worker in Northern Europe. He gets into the humanities, helping him finding some stability in life. He attends classes at the Philosophy Dpt. at University of Rome La Sapienza, without graduating. In 1993 he luckily becomes Film Director Vittorio De Seta's assistant.

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Director Statement

Around the impossibility of choice // But in every condition in which on the last day of each period of the month, of a year, of twenty years of effort one necessarily finds oneself in the same situation as on the first day, it resembles slavery. The similarity is in the impossibility of desiring something other than what one already possesses, of directing one's effort toward the acquisition of a good. One strives only to live. The unit of time is then the day. In this space one goes round in circles. One oscillates between work and rest like a ball that is bounced from one wall to another. One works only because one needs to eat. But one eats in order to continue working. And again one works to eat.