You Will Die At Twenty - Movie Review.

PORTENDED TO DIE YOUNG, A BOY AND HIS MOTHER NAVIGATE THE UNCHARTED SPACE BETWEEN COMING-OF-AGE AND FACING THE END IN SUDAN’S FIRST OFFICIAL ENTRY FOR “BEST INTERNATIONAL FILM” IN THE 93RD ACADEMY AWARDS

THE DARING FEATURE DEBUT OF DIRECTOR AMJAD ABU ALALA – ONLY THE EIGHTH NARRATIVE FEATURE FILMED IN SUDAN – Now Available On Demand

“Complex, stunning and sophisticated…a major achievement for Sudanese cinema.” -- Mina Takia, AwardsWatch

"Visually stunning and acted to perfection, You Will Die at Twenty is a portentous and masterful debut film." -- Claire Bowman, Amplify!

"The visual assurance of You Will Die at Twenty is the most immediately notable element of Sudanese director Amjad Abu Alala’s accomplished feature debut. Beautifully composed and boasting the kind of sensitivity to light sources and color tonalities usually ascribed to top photographers, the film lovingly depicts the remote east-central region of Sudan as a quasi-magical place of sand, sky and the colors of the Nile. " -- Jay Weissberg, Variety

"[Alala] sharpens this fable-like coming-of-death tale into a moving commentary on unwavering compliance; a clear portrait of Sudan during its 30 years of authoritarian leadership. Thoughtfully ominous, the feature makes both an Emotional  and visual imprint." -- Sarah Ward, Screen Daily

SYNOPSIS: YOU WILL DIE AT TWENTY follows a child — portended to die at age 20 — as he and his mother navigate the uncharted space between coming of age and facing the end. An exceptional story and only the eighth narrative feature film to be made in Sudan, YOU WILL DIE AT TWENTY follows Muzamil (played first by Moatasem Rashid then as a teen by Mustafa Shehata), whose death at age 20 is prophesied on the day of his birth by a traveling sheik. Growing up with his mother, Sakina (Islam Mubarak), in a small village under the constant loom of death, the young boy becomes increasingly curious about what it means to live beyond his mother's confines. And, encouraged by local elders, his overprotective mother relents and allows her son to study the Quran with the other children his age.  In this newly found freedom, Muzamil finds friends, enemies, love, and tempters, though what he truly seeks is a sense of the present and a chance at the future.  

Directed by: Amjad Abu Alala

Written by: Amjad Abu Alala, Yousef Ibrahim

Cast: Mustafa Shehata, Moatasem Rashid, Islam Mubarak, Mahmoud Alsarraj,

Bonna Khalid, Talal Afifi

Produced by: Arnaud Dommerc, Michael Henrichs, Ingrid Lill Høgtun

Co-produced by: Sherif Fathy, Mohamed Hefzy, Marie Fuglestein Lægried,

Linda Bolstad Strønen

Cinematography: Sébastein Goepfert

Genre: World Cinema/Drama

RT: 103 minutes

Language: Arabic with English Subtitles

My Review and Thoughts:

This is another movie that I wasn't sure that I could stick with from the beginning, but I was super glad that I did. Imagine being told that you are going to die when you turn 20 years old from the village prophet, and the whole village and both your parents, believing that it's true. So you grow up believing this. 

Muzamil's mother lets him attend school when the teacher asks his mother to let him attend. The boys are mean to him at first and Muzamil doesn't have any real friends except for a friend of his mother's, daughter. He works for his uncle who tells him to take some things to an outsider and asks him to not let anyone see him. This gentleman opens up Muzamil's eyes to the larger world outside his village with videos and movies that the man has shot on his journeys. This gentleman starts to become a father figure in Muzamil's life then his real father who couldn't stay and deal with his son who was told he'd only live to be twenty.

Does Muzamil die when he's twenty? What happens between him and his good female friend? Well, you'll have to watch the movie to find out! I wish that I could give more away about the movie here, but, that wouldn't be fair. Check out the trailer below. This movie is amazing!