Elements of “Oliver Twist” are given a West African update in “Our Time Will Come,” an atmospheric and emotionally absorbing feature debut from writer-director Amartei Armar, who thankfully cares too much for his orphaned characters to torture them (and us) with unending miserabilism. Beginning as a road trip, then shifting to a punishing vision of hardscrabble life in Accra, the film blossoms into a story of irrevocable bonds forged out of shared adversity. Handsomely shot by John Kwame Markin and anchored by an adult-sized performance from teen Idrissu Tontie Jr., “Our Time Will Come” (presented in Marrakech’s 2025 Atlas Workshops as “Vagabonds”) plays with certain narrative conventions in such distinctive ways that it’s likely to find a welcoming home wherever it travels following its Locarno premiere.
Armar’s Ghana is one where family ties have been eroded and ethnic identity precludes any notion of national solidarity. Within the vacuum left by rural flight and grinding poverty, people’s instincts are to rebuff anyone resembling the outsider they used to be themselves, making for a dog-eat-dog world where protection is possible only if a self-described family welcomes the newcomer into their midst. Oblivion is just one step away, and kinship, whether by blood or affinity, is redefined for a modern world in which traditional safety nets have been rent asunder.
