Souleymane's Story
aka L'Histoire de Souleymane
First screened in December 2025
Director: Boris Lojkine. Cast: Abou Sangare, Alpha Oumar Sow, Emmanuel Yovanie, Younoussa Diallo, Keita Diallo, Mamadou Barry, Nina Meurisse. Screenplay: Boris Lojkine and Delphine Agut.

 In Brief:  Marvelous balance of rigorous technique and textured characterization. Climax equally political and emotional.

VOR: ④  The story couldn't be timelier or more important, even if several dramatic beats are familiar. Uncommonly strong handling of mostly non-pro cast.


   
Photo © 2024 Unité / Canal+ / Ciné+, © 2025 Kino Lorber
Director and co-writer Boris Lojkine has fully absorbed the Dardenne Brothers' style guide but also mirrors their talent—not always evidenced in other heirs and imitators—of deeply linking that restless but hyperreal energy to the themes, predicaments, and characterizations at the sad, beating heart of the movie. The dogged camera, the vérité urban soundscape, and the sprint/pause/sprint/pause editing blessedly don't come across as pilfered affectations. They each feel authentic to the tale of an undocumented Guinean migrant working illegally while seeking asylum in Paris. He's pretty clearly unready for his government interview, mere days away when the film starts. It's possible Souleymane needs to level up quickly for this fateful occasion, and he's frustrating some important people around him by seeming so behind the curve... and yet the enormity and instability of what he's up against could hardly be clearer.

Souleymane's Story charts this scenario through some predictable but also some surprising turns. (And whose fault is it that tales like this, no matter where they take place, repeat so many of the same stubborn obstacles and emotional crises?) The camerawork of Tristan Galand, who had early gigs as an electrician on two Dardennes movies, manages what films like La Promesse and Lorna's Silence also managed: a rigorous visual closeness and almost metabolic attunement to an always-onscreen protagonist while managing to draw out the unique energies of second- and third-tier characters as well, and to sketch the surrounding city in fragrant, palpable microcosm as these particular people would experience it. Galand, editor Xavier Sirven, and the sound team all contribute meaningfully to the ambient enervation and the more specific, circumstantial tensions that suffuse Souleymane's Story without making us feel like we're entirely in Souleymane's head. This is a real person in a real place, under an unreal amount of pressure in a world where most other people's plates also look pretty full.

Those pressures arrive from even more corners as the movie unfolds, right through an indelible 20-minute closing sequence that, however inevitable, could hardly be improved upon. The central performance by Abou Sangare, a model of elegance, evasion, endurance, and barely controlled upset throughout, makes a further leap in this final section and demands consideration among the greatest acting achievements of this year or last. I'm sorry I didn't see this earlier, but I'm glad that major awards bodies in France, Europe, the U.S., and elsewhere have consistently taken note of this movie's many strengths. Grade: B+

Awards:
Cannes Film Festival: Jury Prize (Un Certain Regard); Best Actor (Sangare; Un Certain Regard)
European Film Awards: Best Actor (Sangare); Best Sound Design (Samuel Aïchoun, Rodrigo Diaz, Pierre Bariaud, Marc-Olivier Brullé, Charlotte Butrak)
César Awards (French Oscars): Best Supporting Actress (Meurisse); Best Male Revelation (Sangare); Best Original Screenplay; Best Film Editing (Xavier Sirven)
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