Keswick Film Club - Souleymane's Story

Synopsis

Winner of festival awards around the world, including the coveted 'Un Certain Regard' Jury prize at Cannes last year, get ready to follow the routes of Souleymane Sangaré as he frantically tries to keep up a gruelling schedule delivering food on his bicycle round the streets of Paris. To make his life even more stressful, he is an illegal immigrant from Ghana who faces an interview to gain asylum in just two days.

This social-realist view of the plight of immigrants is lead by a new actor - Abou Sangaré - who gets great reviews all round. "Navigating the city's terrifying night-time traffic and shifting from one homeless shelter to another in the early hours, Sangaré conveys these unsustainable stress levels in little gestures rather than big theatrics. He quietly seethes at a restaurant proprietor who holds him up and after a collision with a car, he snaps at a client when she complains that her food has been spilled.

There's no give anywhere: if he loses the phone, smashes the bike, or misses the late-night bus to the shelter, he has nowhere to go...When Sangaré won a best actor award at last year's Cannes, he still hadn't received French residency. Talk about life imitating art" - Phil de Semlyen, Time Out.

As Souleymane cycles the streets, we are shown how these economic migrants live invisible lives, being ignored at best, abused at worst. There are so many of them that they end up doubling their own exploitation by trying to fiddle the system; "Sangaré's exemplary, unfeigned performance helps them speak" - Phil Hoad, Guardian.