To see at the cinema: This Cannes-winning story is moving and a bit like its actor

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As he pedals through the streets of Paris to fetch food, Suleiman repeats his story. In two days, he must undergo an asylum application interview, which is the key to obtaining the documents. But Suleiman is not ready.

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In October 2019, Boris Lozhkin presented his film, which is dedicated to the tragic fate of the photographer Camille Lepage, who was ambushed in the Central African Republic. Five years later, the director remains grounded in reality and drama to tell an untrue but believable story. Because it could be the many undocumented workers we regularly see on the streets of Paris.

“The image of these bike suppliers worked for me”explains the filmmaker in the press kit. “And I asked myself: What if I shot Paris as a foreign city whose codes we don’t know, where every policeman is a threat, where the population is hostile, full of arrogance, difficult to approach? In the second film. We are: a hurried worker, who orders his burger, the agitated passer-by confronting the bicycle waiters, the government official standing in front of Suleiman.

From this almost banal everyday life, Boris Lozhkin draws a drama that leans towards a thriller. Where every intersection, every bus lane, every encounter could be a threat to Suleiman. Slow him down to the point where he misses the drop-off location (and thus the money) or the last bus that takes him back to the reception center where he has to spend the night.

“What if I photographed Paris as a foreign city whose codes we didn’t know”

In this story spread over 48 hours, Ukunti counts down without forgetting: the prospect of an asylum application interview, the key to obtaining documents, for which he repeats a supposedly infallible story in his absence. In many ways, the feature film is reminiscent of the excellent À plein temps, which pointedly made us think that Laure Kalam had missed his commuter train.

Less tense and without music, The Story of Souleymane also revolves around the hope of changing lives and refuses to over-dramatize. In this way, the obstacles remain believable, to the benefit of the film’s realism and the emotions it evokes. Especially during its final sequence, the interview, which manages to build tension and then move in horror without overdoing it.

It must be said that the main advantage of the feature film is the personality of its main actor, Abu Sangare. Although she’s never acted in front of a camera before, she proves to be consistently accurate, and for good reason: Suleiman’s story (with whom she shares her last name) is a little bit her own.

Leaving Guinea at the age of 16 (he is now 23) to help his ailing mother, the actor crossed Mali, Algeria, Libya, the Mediterranean and Italy before joining France and settling in Amiens, where he obtained a bachelor’s degree in professional mechanics. Like Suleiman, with the difference that the latter is a delivery man in Paris.

But the actor and his barely fictional double also share the fact that they have to play a role to offer themselves a better future: weeks before the opening of the 77th Cannes Film Festival, from which Souleymane’s story is left with two titles. (Male Actor Prize for Abou Sangaré and Un Certain Regard Prize), the neo-actor was denied his request for regularization. For the third time, while the promise of permanent employment awaits in Amiens.

Thus, the film’s title has a triple meaning: Suleiman’s story is the same as what we see on screen, just as the hero learns to say for his interview, just like Abu Sangare’s. And a very large number of people. While the ending of the film remains open and leaves the audience with the possibility of seeing a positive outcome, the reality behind the scenes is quite different.

“Only when he gets his papers will I feel like I’ve finished my film”

But its exposure and its success at the Cannes Film Festival may tip the scales in its favor, and the team has filed appeals: “The prefect sent me an email”Abu Sangare said to him France 3 in September. “Taking into account the new elements added to my appeal, he suggests that I reconsider the new request, which is positive, but as I speak, I am out of documents.

“From the moment we bring Sangare with us to play the lead role in a film, it’s a form of responsibility.”Boris Lozhkin, who was inspired by the fate of his actor, recalls that the character. “It’s clear to me that only when he gets his papers will I feel like I’ve finished my film.”