‘Movies about migrants are almost a genre of their own, now. In recent years, there have been several excellent movies about the experiences of migrant workers, mainly in Europe, notably Tori and Lokita by Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne, Flee by Jonas Poher Rasmussen, Aki Kaurismaki’s The Other Side of Hope, and Sally El Hosaini’s The Swimmers, as well as the Israeli film, Running on Sand by Adar Shafran.
A new film about an African asylum seeker in Paris, Souleymane’s Story by Boris Lojkine, opened throughout Israel on January 16, and it paints a haunting portrait of one face behind all the headlines about immigration.The highlight of Souleymane’s Story, which won the Un Certain Regard Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, is Abou Sangare’s performance in the title role.
Previously a non-professional actor, he has already won a host of awards, including Best European Actor at the 2024 Europe Film Awards and the Best Actor in the Un Certain Regard competition at Cannes.
In a just world, he would get nominated for an Oscar, but as the movie makes clear, the world is far from just.
Souleymane’s Story looks at the two days before Souleymane’s interview with immigration authorities, and the scene in which he sits down for this interview is one of the most moving pieces of film acting I’ve seen in years.
The movie also reminds us that most migrants leave their homes to seek better lives and that throughout the developed world, an underground economy has flourished based on their underpaid labor, to which the authorities tend to turn a blind eye.
Souleymane is a Guinean who has come to France to try to find a way to support his ailing mother, whom he had to leave behind. In order to stay in Paris, his application for political asylum must be granted and so he is being coached by a social worker – for a steep price – on how to claim that he was politically active back home and was persecuted by the government.
Who is Souleymane?
But Souleymane, who is fluent in French, was a mechanic with little formal education and just to remember the basic facts of his cover story, let alone tell it convincingly, is a huge challenge for him.
He ekes out a living making food deliveries on a bike, and pays a huge fee to a licensed deliveryman who is allowed to work through an app.
As an asylum seeker, he is not allowed to receive this kind of a license or do any work at all legally. Nearly every Euro he earns, he sends home to his mother and spends his nights in a shelter.
Every time a restaurant is late in handing him a food order, he risks losing his deal with the license holder, and his own safety comes last as he rides his bike recklessly through traffic to maintain his high rating on the app. Watching him weave his way through the Paris streets on his bike is as harrowing as any movie chase scene you’ll ever see.
Souleymane is an extremely sympathetic hero, and you root for him as he makes his way through his daily rounds, all the while trying to memorize the story the authorities need to hear.
It’s interesting to see the details of this migrant community, where Africans from different countries communicate through their common language, French. Sometimes they help each other, sometimes they don’t.
As difficult as Souleymane’s life is, he is constantly reminded that there are those who envy him, and more recently arrived migrants accost him and try to get him to hook them up with owner of the food delivery license.
One mistake, one late delivery too many, one false step and he could be deported, putting his ailing mother’s life in at risk.
Regardless of how you feel about Souleymane’s willingness to lie about needing political asylum and about immigration in general, after watching this powerful and brilliantly acted movie, you will likely look at foreign workers differently as you pass them on the street or see them biking across your city.