Mutts. 2019. Canada. Directed by Halima Ouardiri. DCP. 18 min.
Man Push Cart. 2005. USA. Written and directed by Ramin Bahrani. With Ahmad Razvi, Leticia Dolera, Charles Daniel Sandoval. 35mm. 87 min.
Inspired by lead actor Ahmad Razvi’s life story, Ramin Bahrani’s Man Push Cart offers a melancholic look at post-9/11 New York from the perspective of a Pakistani immigrant—a former rock star in his native country, now a widower estranged from his son in Pakistan—as he struggles to make a living selling coffee and bagels, dragging a heavy cart through the cold, impersonal streets of Midtown Manhattan. Two decades later, Bahrani’s celebrated debut film remains a subtle look at the lives of those pushed to the margins of the American dream in a city marked by a lack of human connection. In Mutts, Halima Ouardiri films a large sanctuary in Morocco, filled with hundreds of stray dogs, and uses it as a metaphor for the struggles of refugees and life in poverty and confinement.