Synopsis
A bus stop, a town square, a few blocks of houses in the suburb of a small French town, in Chatellerault. Zohra Hamadi, an Algerian citizen, can stand upright thanks to several metal rods, and now seems free of her debilitating scoliosis – the very reason for her immigration to France. By a twist of fate, this same recovery leads to her residence permit being revoked by the French State: she must consequently disappear, become invisible and inaudible. Choosing to make what he describes as State-coerced fiction, Philip Scheffner (to whom an Atelier was dedicated in 2018) abandons the documentary project he had begun and invents a scenario and a form to convey the violence and absurdity of this situation: Rhim Ibrir – whose story this is, and who had already taken part in one of the filmmaker’s previous films, Havarie – plays the main role, drawing from her own traumas. Via a simple and ingenious device that consists in particular of isolating the protagonist in the frame, the German filmmaker delivers a powerful political film. [VdR, Émilie Bujès]
with: Rhim Ibrir, Thierry Cantin, Didier Cuillierier, Khadra Bekkouche, Nouria Lakhrissi, Sadya Bekkouche, Hassane Ziani, Zoulikha Ibrir
