Fatima
Directed by Philippe Faucon
Release Year: 2015
Running time: 79
Country:
France
Language:
French and Arabic
Subjects:
French Cinema & Culture
, Family Studies
, Women's Studies
, Middle Eastern Studies
, Human Rights
Directed by:
Philippe Faucon
Fatima lives with her two teenage daughters and works cleaning jobs to pay their way through school. Inspired by a true story and the poetry of the North African writer Fatima Elayoubi, who immigrated knowing very little French and slowly taught herself the language. A patient, reflective study of a woman pressured by her children and her neighbors alike to assimilate into a culture of which she's wary. Despite the display of everyday racism, both veiled and overt; internal domestic disputes and external gestures of inhospitality, Fatima offers an uplifting experience and one of recent French cinema's most trenchant and moving portraits of immigrant experience.
Awards
2016 Cesar Award-winner for Best Film, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Newcomer (Female)