
Dheepan
classified 15 SPlease note: This was screened in April 2016
Jacques Audiard's (A Prophet, Rust and Bone) soul-stirring, powerful Palme d'Or winner follows a former Tamil Tiger soldier as he flees from the aftermath of the Sri Lankan civil war to begin a new life in a Parisian suburb.
By adopting passports belonging to the dead, Dheepan (Antonythasan Jesuthasan), a Tamil soldier, pretends that Yalini is his wife and Illayaai is his daughter so they can flee together and find a somewhat easier asylum in France. Once settled in the outskirts of Paris, they must use their hard-won survival skills to navigate their crime-ridden housing estate - and Dheepan in particular finds the spirit of his violent past recurring in the present, as his war wounds are re-opened and the brutality that he's surrounded by consumes him.
A compassionate, provocative film, Dheepan is an inquiring portrait of the immigrant experience in Europe - and particularly of the violent inner world that many victims of war carry with them wherever they go.