Director: Alain Gomis
Country: Senegal / France
Year: 2012
Runtime: 86 minutes
Cast: Saul Williams, Djolof Mbengue and Anisia Uzeyman

November 7
Opening Night Feature

    Tey / Today / Aujourd'hui

Absorbing, meditative, poetic and gentle, TEY / TODAY chronicles a man's final day of living. There is no doubt that Alain Gomis’ latest work puts this French Senegalese writer and director on the map as one of the most unique and intriguing artists of contemporary cinema.

Satche, played by a charismatic American poet, actor and musician Saul Williams, wakes up one morning in the home of his parents in Dakar with the realization that he has only one day left to live. TEY is set in the place where death comes claiming a person with a 24 hour notice and no explanation given aside from the fact that he was chosen.

Satche’s friends and family are all aware of the inevitable. As he rises to face the day... a group of people await to greet him outside of the room to commemorate and grieve the still alive Satche.
He walks out of the house, parading the streets of Dakar filled with people cheering for him, he visits his old mistress, his uncle, colleagues... and finally, before the magic hours of the night falls upon the city, Satche arrives home to his estranged wife and two children. That is where he is meeting his end, also marking the beginning of his Eternity.

TEY is a tender and melancholic celebration of life. Closely examining life’s fragility, Gomis takes Sache on a journey to face his final hours without fear, and by doing so he trespasses on reality; he brings us to the dreamlike world where immortality resides.

Hypnotized we are left staring at the already darkened screen feeling fragile and vulnerable, but with a great sense of tranquility.
Perhaps because before, we did not know how it felt to get to a place of true peace. Now we do ...

The delicate, sometimes methodically quiet yet powerful and sophisticated visual aesthetics of the film, the superb cinematography and thoughtfully chosen editing make TEY a contemporary testament of poetic cinema that puts the film in the succession to the work of Andrey Tarkovskiy, Djibril Diop Mambety and Luis Bunuel…

- Alla Verlotsky