Goodbye Solo

(USA, 2008, 91 mins)

35mm

Wisconsin Premiere

writer: Bahareh Azimi, Ramin Bahrani
director of photography: Michael Simmonds
sound supervisor: Tom Efinger
production designer: Chad Keith
co-executive producer: Stephen Bannatyne
executive producer: Brian Devine, Brooke Devine
executive producer: Sally Jo Fifer
producer: Jason Orans, Ramin Bahrani
cast: Souléymane Sy Savané, Red West, Diana Franco Galindo, Lane 'Roc' Williams, Mamadou Lam, Darmen Leyva
director of photography: Taylor Gentry

• IMDB Film Info
• www.goodbyesolomovie.com/
• Trailer

Solo is a Senegalese taxi driver in Winston-Salem, N.C. One day he picks up a fare: a tough old codger who also hires Solo for a specific trip happening in two weeks. Gregarious, generous, and hard to ignore, Solo tries to get the prickly William to open up. He’s worried that something is wrong, for it seems like Williams has no friends or family. He takes William home to meet his wife and daughter, but after an argument at home Solo moves into William’s motel room, and the two men continue their unlikely friendship. Bahrani has made beautiful films (Chop Shop, WFF08; Man Push Cart, WFF07) with nonprofessional actors. Played by Souléymane Sy Savané, Solo is based on a cab driver that Bahrani met in his home town of Winston-Salem. Savané, who is from Senegal, says: “In my country, there is an old saying: ‘an elder that dies is like a library that burns.’ When I moved to America I was always shocked by Western culture’s lack of interest in the elderly. In Africa, we would never abandon an elder like William, stranger or not.” “Bahrani is a filmmaker with a specific vision for the kinds of films he wants to create, and he excels at making deceptively minimalist, character-focused films; he's a firm believer in simplicity in filmmaking, and doesn't rely on tricksy conceits, convoluted plots, or funky camera angles to make his point.…the emotions he evokes with his latest effort are stronger and more compelling, and this is my favorite of his films to date.” — Kim Voynar, Cinematical. Winner, FIPRESCI Prize, Venice Film Festival.

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