Paris Stalingrad

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Hind Meddeb, Thim Naccache | France | 2019 | 86 min. | French, Arabic spoken | English subtitles

In the summer of 2016, a group of refugees from East Africa and Afghanistan settle in the Paris district of Stalingrad. With their presence in a location that is usually neatly shielded from the refugee crisis, they focus attention on an existence for which there is no administrative place. Filmmakers Hind Meddeb and Thim Naccache capture the bureaucratic maze, police repression and everyday life in the makeshift camp.

One of the refugees they meet is Sudanese teenager Souleymane. His poetic musings and nightly wanderings through the surrounding neighbourhoods offer him a way to escape from his grim situation. Despite the injustice shown, Paris Stalingrad is above all a film about the power of the human spirit.