VIFF 2024 begins on September 26th with over 350 screenings of films from around the world. One of the films on offer in the 2024 lineup is Souleymane’s Story, from French director Boris Lojkine. The Souleymane of the title, played by the 23-year-old non-professional actor Abou Sangare, is an asylum seeker from Guinea in western Africa, who is living in Paris, France, while awaiting an interview with French immigration authorities, part of  his application for asylum. Souleymane’s Story is a social-realist film in the tradition of Mike Leigh or Ken Loach. A docu-drama—a fictional film sharing many of the attributes of a documentary—Souleymane’s Story offers a glimpse behind the headlines into the life of asylum seeker in contemporary France, through the experiences of an individual with a name and a distinctive personality, animating and personalizing what would otherwise be simply statistics.

As with most asylum seekers, Souleymane is in a vulnerable position, living alone in an unfamiliar country with no family to fall back upon. Officially ineligible for work, he is dependent on social services for the basic necessities, things like food, housing, and hot showers, as he waits for his application for asylum to be processed. The housing is institutional: vast dormitories on the outskirts of the city, filled with bunk beds. Cafeteria food. Lineups for showers. Hand-washing laundry in the bathroom sinks.

Out of desperation Souleymane has made arrangements to “rent” a job as a courier / delivery person, becoming a participant in the grey economy. The arrangement has Souleymane working long days, hustling through the streets of Paris in all weather on a cheap bicycle to pick up and deliver food orders, while the “owner” of the delivery job works a second job as a shop assistant. Under their arrangement Souleymane will take only a portion of the courier pay, while the remainder goes to the job’s “owner.” The money he earns is always “to come,” the job “owner” being paid directly into his bank account, with Souleymane to receive his split later. Randomly, the app through which he receives his delivery orders requires that he submit a selfie, and Souleymane must pedal to the shop where the delivery job’s “owner” works his second job, so that a selfie can be taken and submitted. You can imagine the ways in which an unscrupulous person could exploit the vulnerability of people like Souleymane, so it is no surprise when Souleyman is abruptly locked out of the courier app, the courier job “owner” ghosting him as a way to avoid paying Souleyman his share of the delivery job’s pay. As an “illegal,” Souleymane is at the mercy of those who have status, with no recourse through the standard bureaucracies of French society.

The time-frame of the film is the two or three days and nights preceding the interview at which Souleymane’s asylum application is to be assessed. We watch as Sourleymane rehearses a fictional asylum-seeker story, one which he has been persuaded is more likely to have his application approved. He has come to believe that his own story is not convincing enough, and that in order for his application to be approved, he must present a more dramatic story to French authorities. He pays for the advice of a successful applicant, Barry, also from Guinea, who has been selling his own story to others. Souleymane must therefor pretend to have been a political activist in Guinea, forced to leave the country due to his activities against those in power there. We watch as Souleymane struggles to memorize the dates of rallies at which he is supposed to have appeared, the names of his supposed fellow activists, the date of his supposed arrest, and the conditions in the prison where he was supposedly jailed, and tortured. We have come to sympathize with Souleymane as we watch his struggle to stay afloat, so there is genuine tension as the date of the interview approaches.

You can view the trailer for Souleymane’s Story here. There is only one in-theatre screening of Souleymane’s Story during VIFF 2024: on Wednesday, October 2, 2024 at International Village. That screening appears to be sold out already, but others may be added. You can read additional details on the film at the VIFF website.

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