Absent Present (2010) [N/A]
Featuring:
Doudou Dienne, Francisca Mora, Papa Ndiaye
Written by:
Angelika Levi
Directed by:
Angelika Levi
Release Date:
January 1, 2010
Original Title:
Absent Present
Genres:
Drama
Ratings / Certifications:
N/A
Runtime: 85
Benji was brought from Namibia to the GDR in 1979 as a young child and sent back in 1990 after German reunification. Levi got to know him there in 1991. Two years later, he hitchhiked back to Europe disguised as a tourist. But "in this film there is no main character. Benji, who should have been it, has disappeared," it is stated at the beginning of the movie. On her search for traces, Levi associatively links the story of the refugee with the stories of flight of those she meets underway. The journey leads from Germany to Namibia, to the Spanish mainland and the Canary Islands, all the way to Senegal. Without wanting to draw a geographical or political map, an essayistic documentary on the various forms of traveling emerges: vacation and migration, voluntary and forced return.
Director Angelika Levi met Benji in 1991 in Namibia, where she was working as a camerawoman. Benji should have been the main character of ABSENT PRESENT, but he had disappeared. The film re-sketches some stages of Benji's life, an...
