Letter from New York City

Haroun made his video diary of New York in the form of a fictional diary in which Taja, a pretty young African woman, is the narrator. Taja comes from the poor Sahel country of Chad and has just arrived in New York in the first of the three episodes that makes up the film. She writes letters to her sister back home about her harsh and difficult life as an immigrant in a Western metropolis like New York. Her homesickness is depicted by flashbacks of situations in her home country and by the African music on the soundtrack under the images of the unapproachable city. In the second episode, Taja would appear to have recovered from her initial shock and tries to shape her own life. She diligently practices her English in front of the mirror. In the last episode, she seems to have found her feet. Yet in her small room (but it is her own) she is still occasionally felled by severe homesickness. Then she yearns for the scent of the Sahel. (GjZ)
Mahamat Saleh Haroun (Abéché, Chad, 1961) studied at the Conservatoire Libre du Cinéma Français in Paris and journalism in Bordeaux. Bye Bye Africa, screened in Rotterdam last year, was his first feature-length film and also the first full-length film ever made in Chad. Previously, he made several short films and documentaries.