- France
LA GRAINE ET LE MULET
Synopsis
Slimane Beiji (Habib Boufares) is 61 and has worked all his life at the shipyard in the port of Sète. Now he is made redundant. Divorced, he lives at a small hotel with its owner and her daughter Rym (Hafsia Herzi), but stays in close contact with his former family. With his severance pay he wants to open a restaurant on an old boat, serving couscous with fish the way his ex-wife makes it – and for that he needs everyone: the old family, the new one, and his friends from the harbour. Abdellatif Kechiche tells, in “La graine et le mulet” (France 2007), of a man trying to work his way back from the margins, and of a family whose cohesion is negotiated at the dinner table.
Kechiche lets his characters talk at length and films eating as if it were a feat of strength. In Venice, the film received the Special Jury Prize in 2007, the International Critics’ Prize, and, for Hafsia Herzi, the Marcello Mastroianni Award for best young actress. “La graine et le mulet” was shown at Around the World in 14 Films in Berlin in 2007.
Festival
Shown at the 2007 edition of Around the World in 14 Films.
