Receiving the wonderful privilege last year to host the event,I felt extremely honoured to be invited to host the 2017 ICM Film Festival. Taking a look at the titles set for the festival,I was thrilled to find one from Ethiopia,which became the first crumb of my festival viewings.

The plot-

The future:

Seeing an alien spaceship hoovering above the post-apocalypse landscape of Ethiopia, superhero Candy travels across the land to find a way to get on the ship,whilst his pregnant partner Birdy looks to a photo a Michael Jordon for guidance. Picking up artefacts from the pre-apocalypse world, Candy looks towards an antiques dealer, a witch, and Santa Claus to give him a crumb to enter the spaceship.

View on the film:

Landing on earth at a compact 68 minutes, co-writer/(with Daniel Worku) director Miguel Llansó & cinematographer Israel Seoane conjure up an incredibly surreal post-apocalypse landscape of decaying buildings covered in sand,and tightly held corner shots reflecting the mountains of twisted metal against the walls of each building. Throwing iconic items of American pop culture such as Superman and Michael Jackson records into the surreal blender, Llansó gives the surrealism a playfully comedic twist,with a narration revealing how rare/valuable each of the items has become,as they hover above earth.

Taking place when popular culture appears to have completely stopped, the screenplay by Llansó and Worku keeps a wonderfully chirpy,playful atmosphere bouncing along the wasteland,with the writers studying the value placed on material possessions in a lightly comedic manner,along with Santa and a witch being given a spiky,Steam Punk edge. Attempting to fly back to the spaceship, Daniel Tadesse gives a great performance as Candy that bursts with superhero excitement,as Candy tries to get a crumb of outer space.