Samer Muscati, a researcher with Human Rights Watch Middle East and North Africa division, introduces tonight’s film, Welcome, writer-director Philippe Lioret’s dramatic chronicle of intersecting lives.
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Welcome
Tonight’s Film: ‘Welcome’ With Special Guest Samer Muscati of Human Rights Watch
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Tagged france, philippe lioret, samer muscati
Video: Vincent Lindon and Philippe Lioret Meet Students From Sciences Po
Actor Vincent Lindon and director Philippe Lioret present their film, Welcome, to students of the École des Sciences Politiques Lille or Sciences Po. The university, one of nine public institutes in France focused on political studies, trains a large number of the country’s diplomats and civil servants.
Welcome screens Saturday, February 27th, 9 PM at Jackman Hall, Art Gallery of Ontario, part of the 7th annual Toronto Human Rights Watch Film Festival.
Buy your tickets here.
Tagged france, philippe lioret
Video: The Critics Discuss ‘Welcome’
The members of “Critique Cinema”, a program airing on CAP 24 in France, discuss Philippe Lioret’s film Welcome. In French.
Welcome screens Saturday, February 27th, 9 PM at Jackman Hall, Art Gallery of Ontario, part of the 7th annual Toronto Human Rights Watch Film Festival.
Buy your tickets here.
Tagged france, philippe lioret
Video: Interview with Philippe Lioret (‘Welcome’)
French TV interview with Welcome director Philippe Lioret.
Philippe Lioret has been writing and directing films in France since his 1993 debut, Lost in Transit. His 2006 film, Don’t Worry, I’m Fine (Je vais bien, ne t’en fais pas) received 5 César nominations, including Best Film and Best Director. Mr. Lioret was nominated for Lumiere Awards (France’s Golden Globes) in the categories of Best Director and Best Screenplay for Welcome.
Welcome screens Saturday, February 27th, 9 PM at Jackman Hall, Art Gallery of Ontario, part of the 7th annual Toronto Human Rights Watch Film Festival.
Buy your tickets here.
Tagged france, philippe lioret
Welcome: Program Notes
Young Kurdish refugee Bilal (Firat Ayverdi), is driven to escape his war-torn life and begin anew in England.
His journey is stopped short on the shores of Calais, France, but his determination to reach his girlfriend across the channel is fierce. Treated as an outsider by his fellow refugees, he is befriended by swimming instructor Simon (Vincent Lindon), a man who has chosen his isolation, but warms to Bilal’s passion to reach his true love.
We enter the world of refugees caught between worlds, trapped in a place where they are living in fear, and those who risk helping them face retribution.
Ayverdi’s performance is an impressive debut, conveying a combination of desperation and hope that a future holds promises that will erase the abuses of his past. Although the film centres on the friendship that grows between Bilal and Simon, it is clear that their situation is not an isolated case. Bilal is one of thousands traversing Europe under cover and by any means necessary, while authorities hunt down refugees who have avoided the bureaucratic and seemingly impossible processes that would allow them safe passage.
Welcome highlights one of the perils of globalization — that migration of the persecuted can result in continuing the suffering that they sought to escape.
Program Notes by Alex Rogalski
Tagged france, kurdistan, philippe lioret
