It’s not every day that a film about an undocumented delivery man, whose main actor is not known, is released on more than a hundred copies. But The Story of SouleymaneBoris Lojkine’s third feature film, distributed by Pyramide, is a little different: this fiction is similar to a thriller, immersing yourself in the world of bicycle couriers, about which we know almost nothing.
Read the review: Article reserved for our subscribers “The Story of Souleymane”: two days of pure suspense alongside a migrant
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The director, an associate professor of philosophy, born in 1969, takes the viewer closer to Souleymane (Abou Sangare), a Guinean delivery man with a complex profile. While running errands, the young man feverishly prepares his interview for his asylum application: Souleymane tries to remember the story that was made up for him, to enter the administration’s boxes, but which is not the his. He fears the misstep, breaks out in a cold sweat… The film received the Jury Prize at Un Certain Regard in Cannes, and won Best Actor for Abou Sangare, a professional mechanic, astonishing in his precision and emotion. .
In the cafe of a Parisian station, between two previews, Boris Lojkine explains this delicate choice of a migrant character who lies to obtain his papers. “I didn’t want a politically correct film, with the right asylum seeker. As if we didn’t have the right to have characters with a little depth, when it comes to migrants. I am not trying to be a spokesperson, I mainly want to tell the fascinating stories of these people”, explains the director.
“A big traumatized person”
In Cannes, Abou Sangare’s journey moved festival-goers. Born in 2001, in the south-east of Guinea, he has lived in Amiens for six years. He left his country to help his sick mother, who died after arriving in France. He enrolled in a professional heavy goods vehicle mechanic baccalaureate and suffered several refusals for a residence permit. “Abou is very traumatized”underlines the filmmaker. “After Cannes, this summer, the prefecture suggested that Abou submit a new application. This time, we have good hope, unless there is a counter-order from our new Minister of the Interior, which is not excluded”says the director, in an allusion to Bruno Retailleau’s statement – “Immigration is not an opportunity. » He adds, over his long coffee: “Anyway, we’re not going to give up. »
Read the portrait | Article reserved for our subscribers “The Story of Souleymane”: the odyssey of Abou Sangare, dazzling performer awarded at Cannes
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Boris Lojkine, jeans, fleece and backpack, became a filmmaker after leaving national education. He did not see himself spending his life in libraries like his parents, both academics, his mother a professor of English literature, his father a sociologist at the CNRS. “I entered the Ecole Normale Supérieure at the age of 19, I could already count my retirement points up to the age of 65… Suddenly, it scared me a little. »
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