Keswick Film Festival

Synopsis

Hugely popular at the Venice Film Festival, and César for Best French Film of 2007, Tunisian-born director Kechiche's latest movie revolves around Slimane, a shipyard worker from an immigrant Arab community in the French Mediterranean port of Sète who is laid off: a blow which the tired, ageing man accepts with bitter fortitude, as he attempts to use the settlement cash to open a couscous restaurant.

This is a deeply moving tragicomedy, exploring through a skilful, laconic narration both the universal search for happiness (not forgetting the importance of food, which the title implies) and the tensions and situations specific to immigrant families.