Couscous (2007)

Highly Recommended

France

Feature Film

Original Title: La graine et le mulet

Writer/Director: Abdellatif Kechiche

Cinematographer: Lubomir Bakchev

Cast: Habib Boufares, Hafsia Herzi, Farida Benkhetache, Abdelhamid Aktouche, Bouraouïa Marzouk, Alice Houri, Leila D'Issernio, Abelkader Djeloulli, Olivier Loustau, Sabrina Ouazani, Mohamed Benabdeslem, Bruno Lochet, Cyril Favre, Sami Zitouni, Mohamed Karaoui

A 61-year-old divorced Tunisian immigrant, after being made redundant from his dockyard job of 35 years, strives to open a couscous restaurant on a boat, but receives little help from the authorities; luckily both his old and new families pitch-in (eventually) to help him, but life still gets in the way, in Kechiche’s painfully and beautifully human film, a simultaneously heart warming and heart breaking tale, filled with affecting, authentic feeling performances. Iain.Stott