by RICHARD PHILLIPS
Directed by Philippe Lioret; with script by Lioret, Emmanuel Courcol and Olivier Adam
Welcome, the ironically titled latest feature by French director Philippe Lioret, is an intelligent antidote to the ongoing drum-beat of government and media dehumanisation of undocumented immigrants in France and internationally.
Lioret’s movie, which is in French, English and Arabic and set in Calais, is drawn from real events. It centres on a developing friendship between Bilal Kayani (Firat Ayverdi), a poverty stricken 17-year-old Iraqi-Kurd refugee, and the middle-aged Simon Calmat (Vincent Lindon), a Calais swimming instructor.
Bilal is trying to join his girlfriend Mina (Derya Ayverdi) and her family in London, and, like thousands of other teenagers, dreams of playing football for Manchester United. Simon is being divorced by his schoolteacher wife Marion (Audrey Dana), who helps run an illegal soup kitchen for the hundreds of so-called illegal immigrants trying to find a way to cross the Channel to England.
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