French film screening – LA FAUTE À VOLTAIRE

“Blame it on Voltaire”

by 2013 Cannes Winner Abdellatif Kechiche

Synopsis

Released in the year 2000, written and directed by Abdellatif Kechiche, narrates the experiences of a young North African illegal immigrant in Paris dealing with authorities suspicious about his papers, poverty, unemployment, racism, and tempestuous relationships. He struggles to survive in a land that often pays mere lip service to Voltaire’s ideals. The acting is great, the gritty social realism compelling but mercifully peppered with humour and vibrant energy; on the whole all too credible.

27-year-old Tunisian Jallel (Sami Bouajila) is in a police station in the centre of Paris, where he has arrived as a clandestine immigrant. Using a false passport, he begins his adventure as a vagabond. He has no illusions and not so many hopes either. He tries to survive by selling fruits in the underground tunnel of the Metro and he could solve his problem by marrying Nassera (Aure Atika), a single mother, but the deal falls through at the last moment… Struck down by depression, he ends up in an emergency ward for mental illness. Then, just as his ordeals appear to be giving him some respite, offering him at last some true peace and friendship, destiny brings Jallel up against the hard reality of what he has been able to escape so far: The Law.

Abdellatif Kechiche was awarded the ‘Palme d’Or’ at the Festival of Cannes forLa Vie d’Adèle in 2013 and ‘Luigi De Laurentiis Award’ for First Film at the Venice International Film Festival in 2000.

Year : 2000

Duration : 130 minutes

French with English subtitles