Prayer

Directed by Sofia Geweiler

With Igor Regalla, Joana Pialgata, Eric Santos, Inês Corino and Sofia Franco

In a Lisbon techno club, Abdul, an immigrant worker on his very first shift, is on a video call with his wife Aliyah, who is going into labor and urging him to be present, while his new boss Maria desperately calls for his help. Caught between work’s demands and his son’s birth, Abdul grapples with the fear of losing his job and the challenge of becoming a father from afar, and fights with his strict father-in-law for his right to perform the sacred tradition of reciting the Adhan for his newborn son. The film Prayer, which explores the intersection of tradition, fatherhood, and the struggles of undocumented immigrant labor, is based on the autobiographical story of its screenwriter, Deo Mahameru. The project was created as a student film within the KinoEyes Joint European Film Masters at Lusofona University in Lisbon.