Waiting For Happiness

Europe is never once seen in Sissako's marvellously lyrical account of life in Nouadhibou, a coastal town on the edge of the Mauritanian desert – but it remains an enormously influential presence, given that many there are hoping to make their way north, while others, returned from European exile, feel like strangers in their own country. Gently funny, deeply compassionate, and fuelled by a quiet anger at the injustices of the world, this is political cinema at its most poetic and humane.