Winner of the Palme d'Or at this year's Cannes, Dheepan examines the plight of Sri Lankan refugees who flee their war-ravaged homeland following civil war, only to end up in a new kind of conflict zone in the housing projects of Paris.
Marking yet another powerful, captivating film from acclaimed French auteur Jacques Audiard (A Prophet, Rust and Bone), Dheepan takes a sharp, insightful and incredibly timely look at the question of what happens to the millions of migrants who flee conflict zones to find new homes in the cities of the west. Dheepan begins in Sri Lanka at the end of the civil war after a Tamil soldier burns the bodies of his fallen comrades. His family killed, the soldier seeks a way out and finds it when he meets a young woman, Yalini, at a refugee camp. They decide to pose as a family with young Illayaal in order to trick the aid workers and earn them passage to France. Settling in a housing project outside Paris, the pair discover that their escape from Sri Lanka does not bring them the peace they sought though, as past violence and present threats combine to exert a rising pressure that seems destined to reach a boiling point. Beautifully acted and carefully realized, this gripping tale is not to be missed.
DIRECTOR: Jacques Audiard CAST: Antonythasan Jesuthasan, Vincent Rottiers, Marc Zinga LANGUAGE: Tamil, French, English COUNTRY: France YEAR: 2015 LENGTH: 109 min
