18-year-old Lina arrives in Paris for her studies. She comes to look for what she has never found in Lebanon, her country of origin: a certain form of freedom. The survival instinct as the only baggage, she sails from one Paris to another to the rhythm of her romantic encounters.
Acting
Manal Issa's watchful stillness — she barely speaks, you can't look away
Direction
Arbid's refusal to judge Lina's choices, just witnesses them
Cinematography
Paris as fractured mirror — beautiful, indifferent, withholding
Director
Danielle Arbid
Manal Issa
Lina
Vincent Lacoste
Rafaël
Paul Hamy
Jean-Marc
Damien Chapelle
Julien
Clara Ponsot
Antonia
Bastien Bouillon
Arnaud
Dominique Blanc
Madame Gagnebin
India Hair
Victoire
Waleed Zuaiter
L'oncle Simon
Elina Löwensohn
Bogdana, la femme de l'Est
Pascal Tagnati
L'agresseur skin
Jean-Emmanuel Pagni
Le type au perfecto
Yves Heck
Le second fonctionnaire de la préfecture
Henri-Noël Tabary
Le premier policer dans la rue
Alice Pehlivanyan
La secrétaire
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Danielle Arbid based much of Lina's story on her own arrival in Paris from Lebanon at 17, though she insists it's 'not quite autobiography.'
The film premiered at Cannes 2015 in the acid test Directors' Fortnight — programmers fought over it precisely because it refuses the 'immigrant struggle' genre's usual redemption arc.
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