In Robin Dimet’s heartfelt documentary, literary translation is a lonely, precarious pursuit. Living in a rudimentarily furnished home in Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa, sixtysomething Sami has spent nearly two decades translating Greek mythology into Amharic. Slight in frame, the reticent figure only lights up when he speaks of his colossal project, which has grown into an all-consuming obsession. The book has overwhelmed all other aspects of his life, leaving friends, relatives and Sami’s own wellbeing in the rearview mirror.

The film often observes him from a distance, as he moves across a fragmented, fluctuating urban landscape sprouting with towering new developments. Here is a man who, because of his ardent passion, is perpetually out of step with the times. In spite of his bashfulness, Sami is also embraced by a robust circle of artists and intellectuals, who offer him emotional as well as financial support for the completion of his manuscript. At the same time, at the launch for his long-awaited book, Sami is strangely at a loss for words, as he refuses to give a speech about his efforts. Perhaps, his ambivalence about his achievement stems from what he considers to be a wasted youth, spent in the shadow of Mengistu Haile Mariam’s regime.

There are darker aspects. Sami talks of fabled gods and goddesses with such gentleness, yet his literary frustrations have resulted in self-destructive fits of anger, and even estrangement from his son. The film is hesitant to probe such paradoxes of character, as it treats Sami’s odyssey as an isolated case, rather than an extreme example of the larger struggles faced by intellectuals in Ethiopia. An added layer of sociopolitical context could have made this an even more enriching study of sacrifices made in the name of art.

• Sami’s Odysseys is on TrueStory.film from 15 March.