Our Time Will Come

After years of uncertainty and involuntary exile, Siaka from Gambia and his wife Victoria have returned to their “homeland” Austria to build a stable existence and start a family. For over a year, Ivette Löcker accompanies the couple, whose longing for carefree love and the feeling of arrival are not fulfilled without meeting a certain amount of resistance. While Victoria tries to lead a “completely normal” life as a graphic designer, Siaka fights his way through bureaucratic entanglements and precarious jobs while he searches for acceptance and social inclusion.

The two of them invest a large part of their energy in achieving their shared utopia, but cultural differences remain significant, social structures remain immobile, and their own history and traditions are just as hard to shake off. Siaka is only in his early thirties and is already exhausted by life, by the challenges that stand in his way and his relationship on a daily basis. And he is tired of keeping quiet about his pain. In one crucial scene with Victoria, who would like to devote more attention to marital bliss, he discusses the urgent need to talk on-camera of his experiences of hardship, discrimination, and racism, in order to make more visible his own day-to-day reality as well as that of many others.  

“Racism is a sickness. A sickness for the human society. A sickness that will never cure. Unless you use your power to stop it.” Löcker knows how to use her position as a documentarian effectively. Her multi-layered portrait of a relationship that shakes up hegemonic notions unfolds, but not without ambivalences, always provoking reflection on our own prejudices. Even though – or precisely because – the director remains invisible, dispenses with voiceover, and only once gets involved in the action from off-screen, she highlights a clearly humanistic attitude. This is already seen in the prologue, as well as in a scene where Siaka and a friend clear a garden of weeds with their bare hands in a very short time, and not without some kidding around about the Austrians’ work ethic. Löcker’s solidarity is with the marginalized perspectives, which she once again places at the center of her observation in order to give space to their voices instead of talking about them. (Michelle Koch)

(Translation: John Wojtowicz)