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Set in the seaside community of Nouadhibou in Mauritania, writer/director Abderrahmane Sissako's languorous, bittersweet Waiting For Happiness (Heremakono) is a beguiling work.

A traditional plot is replaced with a series of diffuse, often amusing vignettes concerning everyday life in this place of transit. Teenage Abdallah visits his mother before he emigrates, but has forgotten the local language; cheerful orphan Khatra assists elderly handyman Maata in connecting electricity to a house; and the nomadic Makan is quizzed by the police after discovering a body washed up by the sea.

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