April In Paris Film Festival – A Prophet

Director: Jacques Audiard

2009, France, 155, R

Cast: Tahar Rahim Niels Arestrup, Adel Bencherif, Reda Kateb.

We invite you to join us on Saturday night to meet Camille Lugan, Audiard’s colleague and friend, who will discuss working with him, and will introduce her own film, La Persistante!

 

Jacques Audiard’s iconic film – with a young actor of Algerian descent as its star – changed the world’s view of France as a homogenous nation. At once a impassioned critique of French prisons and a nail-biting thriller, A Prophet follows a poor and illiterate young Parisian (Tahar Rahim) who is sent to prison for a minor crime. His education begins there: as he learns to survive, betray, become radicalized – becoming transformed into a man that Parisians, who once ignored and dismissed him, now have every reason to fear. Taken under the wing of a Corsican gangster (Niels Arestrup of Audiard’s The Beat That My Heart Skipped), the young “prophet” is also drawn to the Muslim prisoners who claim him as their own. Winner of nine César Awards, including Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor.

“A modern classic. This is the work of the rarest kind of film-maker, who knows precisely what he is doing and where he is going.” Peter Bradshaw, the Guardian.