Tournées Film Festival: "Qu'Allah bénisse la France!" ("May Allah Bless France!")

November 03, 2016
06:45 PM - 08:35 PM
Hoyt Auditorium, River Campus



Synopsis
May Allah Bless France! is the invigorating first feature by acclaimed French rapper and novelist Abd Al Malik, a coming-of-age story and redemption tale based on the writer-director's own youth in the beleaguered projects of Strasbourg. The film follows the struggles of Régis, a budding rapper who relies on petty crime to fund his passion for music. But as his fellow musicians get lured into drug dealing, teenage Régis finds salvation in the classics of French literature and his conversion to Sufi Islam. While Abd Al Malik's edifying hymn to education and tolerance is first and foremost a boldly idealistic statement, it is also a profoundly satisfying cinematic experience, shot in high-contrast black and white and full of powerful stylistic devices that break with convention to heighten the impact of everyday violence and injustice. Fluidly adapting his talents as a storyteller to the screen, Abd Al Malik revisits the "banlieue film"—the sub genre of films dealing with restless youth in France's tough suburbs, launched by Mathieu Kassovitz's La Haine in 1995—not only to give an insider's update, but to break with the genre's suffocating pessimism. In these challenging times for France, and particularly for French Muslims, this intelligent and accessible call for a potential way forward is nothing short of essential viewing.

Director
Abd Al Malik

Screenplay
Abd Al Malik

Cast
Marc Zinga
Sabrina Ouazani
Larouci Didi

Details
French, Arabic, and Lingala
96 min.
France, 2015

Distributor
Strand Releasing

Sponsored by the Department of Modern Languages and Cultures, the Film and Media Studies Program, and FACE Tournées Film Festival. Tournées Film Festival is made possible with the support of the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the US, the Centre National du Cinéma et de l’Image Animée (CNC), the Franco-American Cultural Fund, the Florence Gould Foundation, and Highbrow Entertainment.

Links:
Tournées Film Festival (Fall 2016)
"Qu'Allah bénisse la France!" trailer (YouTube)

Category: Film Screenings