Capernaum

Directed by NADINE LABAKI

Starring ZAIN AL RAFEEA, YORDANOS SHIFERAW, BOLUWATIFE TREASURE BANKOLE

Released 1 FEBRUARY

ebanese director Nadine Labaki made a considerable splash in 2007 with her charming ensemble debut, , set in a. Her new film, , attempts to claw back some of that lost faith, initially teasing a serious and outraged political drama about the problem of overburdened parents in developing countries, before doubling down on the chronic sentimentality of that misfiring second feature. The film opens on sweary 12-year-old scamp Zain (Zain Al Rafeea) attempting to sue his parents for choosing to bring him into the world when they clearly had neither the intention nor the financial means to nurture him into adulthood. We then flash back to a chronicle of prolonged hardship in which Zain runs away from home in protest at the ill-treatment of his young sister who is, against her will, sold off for marriage to a man many years her senior.