Le Havre
(Le Havre)

Marcel Marx, a shoeshiner – which to his mind is “the job closest to people, along with that of shepherd” – crosses the path of Idrissa, a teenager from Libreville (Gabon) who has been hunted by the police since he disembarked impromptu from a container in Le Havre port. On the run and on his own, Idrissa finds in Marcel and his small entourage a true haven and steadfast community determined to do all it can to help him join his mother in England. Le Havre opts for a fairy tale approach and makes a formal choice where stylisation never compromises realism. These two choices turn out to be the surest way of getting close to reality, be it rendering the violence with which the police and the state treat refugees, or showing what each can do to try to shield them from it. CH