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Sentenced to a brief existence as an infant, the juvenile in writer-director Amjad Abu Alala’s dazzling debut “You Will Die at 20,” the first-ever Sudanese Oscar entry for international feature film, holds little agency over how his scarce days on this mortal plane are utilized.

From its opening frame of a horse’s corpse in the desert, Abu Alala’s movie announces its mystical proposition, treading the space between the spiritual and the mundane.

With transcendent reflection, Abu Alala’s coming-of-age tale invites us to consider the notion of predestination.

Abu Alala directs with deft ambition, even if the accumulation of plot points and characters sometimes weighs the film down.

Abu Alala’s screenplay, co-written with Yousef Ibrahim and based on Hammour Ziada’s short story “Sleeping at the Foot of the Mountain,” pits the conflicted protagonist against opposing viewpoints on how to live.