Having left Mauritania to study film in Russia, Waiting For Happiness seems to be Sissako's therapy for his own time spent in exile. He describes his work as " …a portrait of people in departure, who have to a certain extent already left, without having actually yet moved."

Abdallah (Mohamed Mahmoud Ould Mohamed) is the transitory central figure inhabiting the village of Nouadhibou on the coast of Mauritania. Abdallah is unable to speak the local language of Hassanya, dresses in Western clothes and views the routine of village life through the stone frame of his bedroom window. While he uses few words to explain his alienation and impending departure, the curious coupling of the young orphan boy Khatra (Khatra Ould Abel Kader) and the grandfatherly electrician Maata (Maata Ould Mohamed Abeid) provide us with enough insight to imagine the life from which Abdallah seeks to escape.

DID YOU KNOW?
	Waiting for Happiness won the International Critics Award for best film at Cannes in 2002.   Sissako cast his film during two months in Nouadhibou prior to filming and incorporated the people he met into his film.

In Waiting for Happiness, words are replaced by shades of colour and contrasting light and simple actions supplant drawn-out monologues. Overly dramatic flights to far off lands are simply implied by the resting vessels at sea; a shadowy reminder of the world beyond. The motivations of Sissako's characters are never needlessly explained but gently coaxed from a cast of non-professional actors.

Strangely, for a film with so little dialogue, Waiting for Happiness appears closer to the world of literary works than cinema. It is a poetic, timeless gem and proof of Sissako's genius in the art of pure cinema.