A Screaming Man (2010) — Chad

Adam had been a pool attendant at an upscale hotel in Chad for thirty years; people nicknamed him "Champ" because of his swimming exploits as a younger man. "The pool has been my whole life," he says. But his crisp, white pool uniform, and the artificial calm of the swanky hotel, belie bigger troubles outside the hotel. His friend and chef David is fired, his son Abdel replaces him as the pool attendant, while he is banished to the front gate in an ill-fitting uniform. When his wife complains of his brooding silence and says that he's changed, he observes, "it's the world that's changed." The deeply personal then collides with the explicitly political when Abdel is mysteriously "conscripted" into the Chadian army to fight against a rebel insurgency. A heart-breaking cassette to his girl friend bemoans the heat, dust and death. In the opening scenes of this drama, father and son frolic in the hotel pool, while in the closing scenes a death at a river bank raises questions about a father's choices. Screaming Man won the Jury Prize at the 2010 Cannes festival. The film is in French and Arabic, with English subtitles.