Run
Description
In the gripping opening minutes of Philippe Lacôte’s mesmerizing feature debut, we watch as Run (the magnetic Abdoul Karim Konaté) enters a church, raises a gun, takes dead aim at his target—the Ivory Coast’s Prime Minister—and fires. However, this grim assassin is no natural-born killer. One look into his tormented eyes and it’s evident that uncommon circumstances and cruel twists of fate have conspired to put him in this treacherous position. As Run flees the scene, Lacôte whisks us back to the young man’s more innocent days as an aspiring rainmaker before xenophobic militia leader “Admiral” (Alexandre Desane, charismatic and malicious in turns) recruits him, achieving a compelling narrative velocity that never relents despite excursions into enchanting magic realism. As the director’s picaresque fable evolves into a fraught account of the birth pains of the “new” Ivory Coast, it remains an enthralling character study and potent reminder that none of us can outrun our destiny. —Curtis Woloschuk
Philippe Lacôte has been hailed as one of the most promising new talents in African cinema. A former reporter and columnist for Radio FMR in France, the Ivory Coast native has brought an equally rigorous investigative quality to his films. After directing a series of shorts that played international festivals, he returned to the Ivory Coast with the intention of making a film with friends. Instead, he witnessed the eruption of a civil war and crafted Chronicles of War in the Ivory Coast, an essay-documentary hybrid. Run, Lacôte’s first narrative feature, premiered at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival.
Trailer
//player.vimeo.com/video/122138214?autoplay=1Film Details
Language French
Year 2014
Runtime 102
Country Ivory Coast/France
Director Philippe Lacôte
Producer Claire Gadéa, Ernest Konan
Writer Philippe Lacôte
Editor Barbara Bossuet
Cinematographer Daniel Miller
Music Sebastian Escoffet
Cast Abdoul Karim Konaté, Isaach De Bankolé, Reine Sali Coulibaly