Harka

Ali (Adam Bessa) scrapes a living hawking gasoline from a jerry can on the side of the street in Sidi Bouzid in Tunisia. He had hoped to better himself, to find opportunities overseas. But the death of his debt-ridden father has left him with the responsibility of caring for his younger sisters. And despair clings to him along with the smell of petrol and the oil that stains his clothes and skin.Loosely inspired by the case of disfranchised Tunisian street hawker Mohamed Bouazizi, who in 2010 set himself alight as a…

Lotfy Nathan has drawn from a deep well of sorrow and rage for this anguished drama, leading the audience to its horrible dénouement like a trail of burning petrol: the title itself means “burning” (and also, ambiguously, escaping by boat). It is inspired by the story of Mohamed Bouazizi, the Tunisian street vendor who in 2011 ignited the Arab Spring (all too literally) by setting himself on fire outside the governor’s office in the central Tunisian city of Sidi Bouzid – making it the uprising’s Ground Zero – in protest…