What do you do when the girl you hope to marry leaves Iraq with her family and moves to London? If you're seventeen-year-old Bilal (Firat Ayverdi) you trek all the way to Calais, France, try to get a trafficker to smuggle you into Britain by truck, and after that fails, decide to swim the English Channel.

That's the set-up in this finely acted, unsentimental drama about the friendship that develops between a homeless teenager and his swimming instructor. At first Simon (Vincent Lindon), who encounters the skinny, determined Kurdish kid at the community pool where he works, is strictly business. Then he realizes that helping Bilal might help him score points with his soon-to-be-ex-wife, a teacher who also serves free meals to the desperate immigrants who gather around the docks.

Director Philippe Lioret explores the bond between a young man yearning for love and an older one mourning its loss in this poignant, multi-award-winning film.

(2009, France, 110 minutes.)
In French, Kurdish, and English with subtitles.
(DVD projection).

This program is co-sponsored by the Atlanta Francophonie Committee and the Consulate General of France in Atlanta. Additional screenings take place at the Midtown Art Cinema March 20—24.