The Story of Souleymane

Winner of the Cannes Un Certain Regard Jury Prize, this nerve-shredding portrait follows a Guinean delivery rider zipping across Paris in hopes of attaining legal residency.

To make ends meet, Souleymane darts through the streets of the French capital on his food-delivery rounds – even if it means he must ‘rent’ his identity from a fellow African with legal working status. But in two days, this undocumented Guinean will face a make-or-break interview for his asylum application. So he’s working overtime, and at breakneck speed, to ensure he can pay a broker to get his papers in order and recompense the owner of the lawful identity he assumes.

Evoking the gig-economy tension of the Dardenne brothers’ Two Days, One Night (MIFF 2014) and the punchy formalism of the Safdies’ Uncut Gems, French filmmaker Boris Lojkine (We, Students!, MIFF 2022; Hope, MIFF 2014) delivers a social-realist thriller as humanist as it is propulsive. The handheld camerawork by DOP and Dardennes collaborator Tristan Galand puts us on the edge of Souleymane’s seat, while first-time actor Abou Sangare, who took home the Un Certain Regard Best Actor award, gives an electrifying performance as a young man desperate to beat the clock – and the odds.

“A vivid picture of the daily battles faced by the invisible undocumented workforce that keeps the urban machine running … Lojkine takes a social realist refugee drama and redesigns it as a thriller on two wheels.” – Screen Anarchy