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Odyssey

Screenplay by Malek Bensmail & David Braun
Directed by Malek Bensmail
Synopsis
While Japan has just experienced a nuclear disaster, Masako, a theatre director, has only one thing on her mind: getting a play off the ground in her Tokyo theatre. The play in question is an adaptation of a manuscript left in Japan by an ulama during his travels a century ago in search of a way to modernise the Arab world. To play the theologian, Masako and her disciple Aska call on the renowned Algerian actor, Agoumi. Amidst the troubled Arab Spring, the trio gets to know each other, each with his or her own story, his or her own phantoms. Over the course of rehearsals, they talk of the ulama Ibrahim’s notes, of history, and of their countries. Their conversations take fascinating and sometimes funny turns. The play is beginning to take shape when Masako dies unexpectedly, leaving the troupe with her testament. Despite the proscription against such practices on Islamic lands, Aska and Agoumi scatter the theatre director’s ashes in Algeria.For them another journey is about to begin.