Welcome

I am a judge for the Indianapolis-based Heartland Film Festival. This feature film is a Crystal Heart Award Winner and is eligible to be the Grand Prize Winner in October of 2009. The Heartland Film Festival is a non-profit that honors Truly Moving Pictures. A Truly Moving Picture "…explores the human journey by artistically expressing hope and respect for the positive values of life."

Bilal is a 17 year-old Kurdish boy from Iraq, who has just taken an arduous, three-month journey to Calais in France desperately trying to get to his girlfriend/fiancée in London. But in Calais he becomes stuck with many other clan-destines or illegal immigrants. These are people without a country. The French won't send them back to the Mid-East because there is a war going on. But they are not welcomed in France because they are clearly illegals. Even the local French people will violate French law if they help these clan-destines.

With this backdrop, Bilal comes up with the idea that he can swim the English Channel to get to his girlfriend. There is only one problem. He can't swim. He goes to a middle-aged French swim instructor, Simon, who not only teaches him how to swim, but also befriends him. Simon has his own problems. He is divorcing his wife and is terribly lonely. Bilal and Simon need each other and form a strangely beautiful symbiotic relationship.

This is a quiet and powerful statement on the individual courage and sacrifice of normal human beings. Bilal and Simon are single-minded in trying to do the right thing and will not be put off their objective. This is a very moving film that haunts you afterwords. It does not take a stand on legal or illegal immigration. It merely shows that these clan-destines are human like the rest of us and have their own stories.

FYI – There is a Truly Moving Pictures web site where there is a listing of past Truly Moving Picture Award winners that are now either at the theater or available on video.

When the Kurdish boy Bilal, on the run from war-torn Iraq, is caught trying to cross the border into Englad, he ends up stranding in Calais. Here he meets Simon(in the process of divorcing his wife), who is as taken aback by the 17-year-old's sheer determination to meet back up with his girlfriend, Mira, in London as we are, and agrees to teach him how to swim. Yes, this kid wants to cross the channel. This is about love, the criminalization of refugees and people fighting against seemingly impossible odds. I have yet to watch anything else by this director, but now I will be on the lookout for it. He correctly realizes that this story is powerful enough, and thus does not need any manipulation for us to be deeply affected by it. Everything in this is underplayed, merely showed, and it is absolutely heartbreaking. The music is minimal(that, or it was so subtle that I did not notice it most of the time) and subtle, with only a single use of a tense piece(and it was still not overbearing). Other than that, it consists of a soft, sad piano, a sort of "voice" to the helplessness of the situation. While the young couple are seldom granted even direct communication(it tends to be second-hand), we believe in their deep feelings for one another. The acting is excellent all the way, and the characters are well-written, and like everything else in this, credible. Granted, this only really shows one side to the argument... still, no one in this feels "evil". Another great thing, and one that also helps it be more removed from Hollywood, is that everyone speaks the language that makes sense for the situation. Their native tongue, or English if they're talking to someone who won't otherwise understand them. There is a little sensuality, moderate violence and disturbing content in this. I recommend this to everyone who can comprehend it(maybe no one under 11). 8/10

The seventeen year-old Iraqi-Kurdish Bilal (Firat Ayverdi) has crossed the Middle East and Europe trying to reach England to meet his girlfriend Mina (Derya Ayverdi) that lives with her family. However he is caught in Calais, France, and sent to a refugee camp. Meanwhile the swimming coach Simon Calmat (Vincent Lindon) is divorcing his wife Marion Calmat (Audrey Dana) and he meets Bilal that wants to have swimming classes with him. Soon Simon learns that Bilal wants to cross the English Channel to be with Mina and the love of Bilal affects him. Simon befriends the teenager and decides to help him. But France penalizes those who help illegal immigrants and a neighbor denounces Simon to the authorities.

"Welcome" is a French film with an emotional view of the illegal immigration, one of the greatest social problems of the century. We see on the news Mexican, Cuban and South American refugees trying to immigrate to the USA; Middle East and African refugee trying to immigrate to Europe; African, Central American mainly from Haiti and South American refugees coming to Brazil. In common, all these people expect to have a better life in the new country. But most of them do not have professional qualification and increase the legion of unemployed or subemployed and illegal workers in the new country.

The director Philippe Lioret brings a different and romantic approach to this problem, with a love story entwined with the sympathetic gesture of solidarity of a man that is needy since he is divorcing his beloved wife and is punished by the French laws for helping the immigrant. The beautiful story is heartbreaking; the performances are top-notch; and this movie introduced a debate in France about illegal immigration. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Bem-Vindo" ("Welcome")

"I knew a boy who tried to swim across the lake, It's a hell of a thing to do, They say the lake is as big as the ocean, I wonder If he knew about it" (Yoko Ono,lyrics slightly modified)

Lioret is one of the most promising French directors .His "Je Vais Bien Ne T'En Fais Pas " deeply moved the crowds .His "welcome" is at least as good,as harrowing and as...pessimistic , noir as his precedent effort.

He chose the right actor as the lifeguard :Vincent Lindon was perhaps never better in his part of a disoriented man ,estranged from his wife , in search of the meaning of his life .With his weary face ,his disenchanted looks ,he seems to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders .Which he does ,in a way.

France ,par excellence the country of refuge (particularly political refugees),is shown in a less-than-flattering light than usual;on the other hand ,one can wonder whether the United Kingdom is really the promised land as it appears in the film.In Calais ,people who gave a shelter to illegal migrants were actually troubled by the Police .Although this is not a true story,all that happens to the lifeguard is credible.

Images of Police vans,of sad beaches ,of free meals ,of informers (the neighbor claims that Simon helps the young Kurd in return for sexual relations!)

The divorced hero has become a cliché;but Lioret makes brilliant use of the screenplay cliché: it's perhaps because Simon has become a lonely man that he takes in his young protégé (one should note he's got no children whereas he is in his fifties ).Simon is ready to give all: his reputation ("yes I'm a gay,I sleep with him ,and I sleep with guys that's why my wife walks out on me" ),his dear treasures (his gold medal:"I gave him" ),and maybe even his job .

To swim across the Channel to get to your girlfriend Mina is an impossible task when you are 17 and you're not a first class swimmer.It's the young man's dream and Simon makes his dream his.

"Welcome" is a great movie,one of the best French movies of the last ten years.

An outstanding film! The history is very believable, the life of clandestine as in documentary, a very responsible cinema! And the actors all are excellent! It is sometimes necessary, in our small comfortable life and our well arranged existences, to receive a shock, and that's what came to arrive with shocking film of P.Lioret, which tackles the current and extreme problem of the clandestine. Under terrible conditions, they are ready to risk their being, hoping to create a better future. In addition to the fact that this history is inspired of an actual reality, one can only accept these characters: The swimming coach, splendid in his role; an ordinary man, monopolized in the beginning of the film by his sentimental problems, also by love for the woman who has left him, will take the risk to help in secrecy a young Kurdish refugee, which wants to cross the English Channel by swim. The total lack of humanity from governmental organizations, certainly reduced a little by work of voluntary NGOs, put us vis-à-vis intolerable and unbearable situation that had been forgotten in the West. So I say Merci to Mr. Lioret for this original and humanist film!