This first-time actor won a French Oscar, then went back to fixing trucks
Like the character he plays in the film, Sangare was an undocumented immigrant facing a bureaucratic nightmare in his search for work. In his words, it's like being in prison: 'You cannot work, you cannot just go out and enjoy yourself with your friends. Gathering documents and telling stories and being rejected, this is something I can really identify with.'
While Souleymane prepares for the crucial interview that will decide if he's granted legal residency, he makes a precarious living as a courier for a company akin to UberEats, speeding through the city on his e-bike to complete his deliveries on time, while doing his best to steer clear of anyone who might ask to see his papers. He rarely gets a chance to catch his breath.
Director Boris Lojkine, who started his film career in documentary, says it was important 'to build a thriller that doesn't take liberties with social reality'. The film is packed with action and suspense, yet what it shows isn't far from everyday experience for many people in cities around the world.
Following its premiere at last year's Cannes Film Festival, the film had significant success in France. It was nominated for eight Cesars and won four.
Some details from Sangare's own life were incorporated into the dialogue, particularly in the final scene. But the script was essentially complete before he came on board, the product of extensive research by Lojkine, who started as a philosophy teacher.
'I'm white, I'm not African, I'm not a delivery worker, it's not my life,' Lojkine says. 'It's very far from my life. So if you want to make a film on that kind of reality, you have to do it right.'
That meant numerous lengthy interviews with delivery workers he approached on the streets of Paris, most of them undocumented immigrants like Souleymane, who effectively operate as subcontractors, using identities 'borrowed' from those with the right to work.
The information they gave him forms the basis for what we see in the film: the tricks of the trade, the danger of being swindled, how the characters live, eat and sleep.
'Everything happens like it happens,' Lojkine says. 'It's always important for me that the people who are represented in the film think that the film is true – it's the most important thing.'
In his eyes, the couriers he spoke to represent a particular modern condition, isolated both as migrants and as nominally self-employed entrepreneurs. 'There is no colleague, no boss, you're alone with your phone.'
Souleymane's phone is his most precious possession, charged with a double significance. 'The phone is his relation to the world – it's his work tool, but it's also his connection to his family and his friends in Guinea. There is something very contemporary in it,' says Lojkine.
He underlines that the film is not just concerned with asylum seekers or undocumented migrants, but with the plight of all those working in the 'gig economy'.
'It's not the problem of being undocumented, it's the problem of the status of these workers,' he says. 'If they're employees, then you have to give healthcare; if they have an accident, then you are responsible for them.
'But if they are independent, if they are self-employed, if they are freelancers, there is no social security for them. And this is a big fight, not only in France but worldwide.'
How much difference can a film make to any of this? Lokjine insists, first and foremost, that The Story of Souleymane isn't a message movie, but an experience. 'I want the audience to be in Souleymane's shoes for two hours.'
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But Sangare is in no doubt that films can change lives, and that this film in particular has done so. 'First, it has changed my life,' he says. 'Then, we have many people writing to us telling us that now they look differently at delivery people, that they realise that they are real people.
'There are even delivery people who told us that before ... they would knock on people's doors and they would just take their bag and leave, whereas now there are more and more people who stay for a minute and exchange words. There is a connection, a minimum connection, which I'm sure is due to the film.'
Sangare says his involvement with cinema has been 'a very positive experience', but it's not one he's in a hurry to repeat. He always wanted to be a heavy truck mechanic and now has a job in a garage. Having obtained the necessary documents by working as an actor, he has pursued the job that was his main objective all along.
While he would consider an interesting role if it came up, he won't spend his time seeking them out. 'I'll have someone else do it for me,' he jokes. For now, he feels he's done enough.
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The Story of Souleymane opens in selected cinemas on June 26, with advance screenings June 20-22. Jake Wilson travelled to France courtesy of the Alliance Francaise.
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