Latest news with #Souleymane
Arabian Post
7 days ago
- Sport
- Arabian Post
Dubai T100 Challenge Aims to Elevate Global Triathlon Standards
Athlete Ghani Souleymane has launched a new, ambitious 100-day triathlon challenge in Dubai, known as the T100. The initiative, backed by the Professional Triathletes Organisation, aims to push the boundaries of endurance sports and create a global platform for triathletes. As part of the broader T100 Triathlon World Tour, the event is set to redefine competitive triathlon events worldwide. The Dubai T100 stands out not only because of its unique structure but also due to its timing and backing from key figures in the world of triathlons. Souleymane, a seasoned athlete with significant experience in triathlons, has designed the challenge to test both physical and mental endurance over an extended period, drawing athletes from across the globe. The triathlon's scope will be marked by a blend of long-distance swimming, cycling, and running events, each of which will progressively increase in difficulty. Participants will be required to compete in numerous stages, with the final day marking a culmination of the 100-day ordeal. This series of events aims to highlight not just athletic prowess, but also the resilience required to compete at the highest levels of triathlon sport. ADVERTISEMENT As the event takes place, the Dubai T100 will intersect with the objectives of the PTO, an organisation committed to elevating the standards of professional triathlons. The PTO has long been an advocate for better support structures for triathletes, aiming to increase prize funds, recognition, and global visibility for the sport. Their backing lends credibility to the Dubai T100, adding weight to its goals of pushing triathlon to new heights. Triathletes who have participated in previous high-stakes challenges have noted how events like these can often serve as a springboard for greater exposure, sponsorship opportunities, and even entry into larger global circuits. Ghani Souleymane's challenge, therefore, offers a dual advantage: it is a test of physical endurance and a career-shaping event for those looking to break into the elite triathlon circle. The Dubai T100 is expected to attract a diverse set of athletes, from seasoned professionals to emerging talents eager to make their mark on the triathlon world. The competition will not only spotlight individual achievements but will also provide a venue for international collaboration and community-building among athletes. Given the support of the PTO, the event could bring about a much-needed renaissance in the triathlon community. This challenge has received significant attention from sports analysts, who believe that the Dubai T100 could become an annual fixture, potentially rivaling other long-standing events in the triathlon calendar. By offering a unique format and structure, Souleymane's event promises to bring fresh excitement and innovation to the sport, which has long been viewed as a niche but ever-growing discipline within global athletics. One of the most intriguing aspects of the T100 challenge is the global outreach. While it is headquartered in Dubai, the event aims to attract athletes from various corners of the globe. With an increasing focus on inclusivity and creating platforms for international athletes, the Dubai T100 could serve as a unifying event for triathlon professionals, bringing together individuals from different cultures and backgrounds to compete in a common sporting goal. Dubai, with its state-of-the-art infrastructure, has long been a favourite for global sporting events, making it an ideal venue for such a groundbreaking challenge. The city's appeal to athletes lies not only in its luxury and accessibility but also in its commitment to fostering world-class sports events. As a destination, it continues to draw attention from both global sports figures and businesses seeking to tap into the city's expanding market.
Daily Tribune
07-08-2025
- Sport
- Daily Tribune
Bahrain Victorious Spirit Returns as T100 Countdown Begins
This year's edition kicks off with an extraordinary challenge from Ghani Souleymane, one of the UAE's most renowned endurance athletes, who will attempt to complete 100 triathlons in 100 consecutive days, each covering the full T100 distance: 2km swim, 80km bike, and 18km run. The journey begins tomorrow at Kite Beach and will culminate with his 100th triathlon at the Dubai T100 on November 16. The feat, officially recognised as a Guinness World Record attempt, also serves a charitable purpose — raising funds for children impacted by conflict. 'The effort is personal,' said Souleymane, who previously completed 30 Ironmans in 30 days. 'It's about doing something extreme for a reason that matters.' Dubai T100 is part of the Professional Triathletes Organisation's (PTO) global T100 Triathlon World Tour and is increasingly seen as a key date in the international triathlon calendar. It blends professional competition with mass participation, all staged against the backdrop of the Dubai skyline. As part of the Dubai Fitness Challenge, the event also aims to mobilise the wider community through accessible races like the Music Run, a 5K fun run drawing thousands. Returning to Dubai is also a deep field of elite athletes — none more anticipated than the reigning world champions from Bahrain Victorious 13, the Bahrain-backed professional triathlon team that has dominated the global circuit. With the Dubai T100 acting as the penultimate stop on the tour before the championship final in Qatar, top contenders will be chasing critical points in the Race to Qatar standings. Last year's event delivered drama and speed in equal measure. Julie Derron, current women's T100 leader, praised the energy and atmosphere, calling it 'one of the best events of the season.' The 2025 edition promises even more, with a packed four-day schedule including a Corporate Relay, Sprint Triathlon, elite men's and women's T100 races, and a 100km amateur triathlon where age-groupers will race the same course as the pros.
BBC News
25-07-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
The Naked Gun to Freakier Friday: 12 of the best films to watch in August
From The Naked Gun to Freakier Friday – these are the films to watch at the cinema and stream at home this month. Souleymane's Story Boris Lojkine's powerful drama was the winner of two prizes at the Cannes Film Festival, and has a 100% rating on the Rotten Tomatoes review round-up site. It's the story of Souleymane (first-time actor Abou Sangaré), an immigrant from West Africa who has come to Paris in the hope of making enough money to support his ill mother. But the title, Souleymane's Story, has another meaning: it also refers to the false life story he has to memorise and recite at a legal residency application interview in two days' time. The trouble is that memorising anything is almost impossible while Souleymane is cycling around Paris as a food delivery worker, crossing paths with the police and with people who owe him money, and trying to find somewhere safe to sleep. "Lojkine's narrative is pacy and moves like an edge-of-the-seat thriller," says Namrata Joshi in the New Indian Express. He "also documents the entire industry that gets built around immigration and asylum". Released on 1 August in the US and Canada Weapons Barbarian, Zach Cregger's twist-filled horror film about the world's worst Airbnb, was a commercial and critical hit in 2022, and now the writer-director returns with a film which, he says, is "more ambitious in almost every way". The Twilight Zone-worthy premise is that 17 children from the same class all wake up at the same moment, walk out of their houses and disappear into the night, never to be seen again. The children's parents (Josh Brolin, among others) are desperate for answers, and their teacher (Julia Garner) is under suspicion. But that, says Cregger, is just the start of the story. Even more intriguingly, he says that he was influenced by Paul Thomas Anderson's multi-stranded ensemble drama, Magnolia. "I love that movie," he told Entertainment Weekly. "I love that kind of bold scale. It gave me permission when I was writing this to shoot for the stars and make it an epic. I wanted a horror epic, and so I tried to do that." Released on 8 August in cinemas internationally The Bad Guys 2 The Bad Guys was a different kind of DreamWorks cartoon – a stylish heist caper in the Ocean's Eleven mould, except that the criminals just happened to be talking animals. Adapted from Aaron Blabey's graphic novels, the film featured Mr Wolf (Sam Rockwell), Mr Snake (Marc Maron), Ms Tarantula (Awkwafina), Mr Shark (Craig Robinson) and Mr Piranha (Anthony Ramos), a gang of wisecracking criminals who got tired of being stereotyped as scary predators. In the sequel, they're still struggling to be accepted as upstanding members of the community, and things get trickier when they're blackmailed into teaming up with another gang of crooked animals: The Bad Girls. The director, Pierre Perifel, says that the sequel makes the jump from heist film to all-action blockbuster. "We're big fans of Mission: Impossible, and of big action films in particular, and we wanted to dabble and play with that genre," Perifel told Collider. "We're not doing Mission: Impossible, we're doing The Bad Guys, but it has those tropes." Released on 1 August in cinemas internationally Caught Stealing Darren Aronofsky is known for his abyss-dark dramas; no one goes to see Requiem for a Dream, The Wrestler or The Whale because they fancy a fun Friday night at the cinema. But now Aronofsky has switched to Tarantino / Ritchie mode for a boisterous crime caper set in grimy 1990s New York. Adapted from Charlie Huston's novel, Caught Stealing stars Austin Butler as a baseball-loving barman who is trying to impress his new girlfriend (Zoe Kravitz) when he stumbles into a gangland feud involving a British punk-rocker (Matt Smith), a pair of Orthodox Jewish hitmen (Liev Schreiber and Vincent D'Onofrio), and $4m in ill-gotten gains. "The state the world's in right now... There's a lot going on," Aronofsky explained in Empire. "So, I wanted to get back to the core ingredients that make movies great – entertainment and fun. I wanted to make something filled with joy and adventure… It's a romp." Released on 29 August in cinemas internationally It's Never Over, Jeff Buckley Jeff Buckley's Grace is one of the greatest albums of the 1990s – or, as David Bowie once said, one of the greatest albums ever made. Buckley's poetic songwriting, swirling guitar arrangements and angelic multi-octave voice were stunning, but, tragically, we'll never know what else he might have accomplished: he accidentally drowned in a river in 1997 before he had completed his second album. Amy Berg's documentary examines the conflicted man behind the music, and ponders the dark ironies of his short life. The father he never knew, Tim Buckley, was also a singer who died young. "What the documentary captures is that Buckley was on his way to becoming a staggeringly huge star," says Owen Gleiberman in Variety. "I defy you to see It's Never Over, Jeff Buckley and not fall in love with Jeff Buckley's voice. By the time the film is over, you want to find a way to go back and rescue him to let him live the life he should have had." Released on 8 August in the US Highest 2 Lowest Highest 2 Lowest "fulfils every expectation you might want from a modern Spike Lee movie", says Stephanie Zacharek in Time. A loose remake of Akira Kurosawa's High and Low (1963), this New York music-industry thriller stars Denzel Washington as a record-company boss. He's renowned for signing some of the biggest names in the business, but his company has fared so poorly in recent years that he is struggling to keep control of it. And then he hears that his son Trey (Aubrey Joseph) has been kidnapped. Co-starring some real-life music stars, including A$AP Rocky and Ice Spice, Highest 2 Lowest is "smart, hugely entertaining, and profound in a way that's anything but sentimental", says Zacharek. "Lee has made a film that feels modest and grand at once, the kind of movie you can see on a Saturday night just for kicks and still be thinking about the next day." Released on 22 August in the US The Roses One of Hollywood's darkest ever anti-romantic comedies, The War of the Roses (1989) starred Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner as a couple going through a blisteringly bitter divorce. Thirty-six years on, it has been remade – or reimagined – with Olivia Colman and Benedict Cumberbatch as the unhappy couple. Cumberbatch is Theo Rose, a famous architect, and Colman is Ivy Rose, a small-time cook. But when his career crashes while hers goes into orbit, the Roses' relationship gets thorny. Co-starring Andy Samberg and Kate McKinnon, the film is directed by Jay Roach (Meet the Parents, Austin Powers), and written by Tony McNamara (The Favourite, Cruella), who says that his screenplay is even more outrageous than the 1980s one, but not, perhaps, as cynical. "We were like, 'Let's do a movie about people who want to stay married rather than two people trying to destroy each other,'" McNamara said on Streaming Movie Night. "A sophisticated adult screwball comedy didn't seem like it had been done for a while in a proper commercial way, and so it seemed like an opportunity." Released on 29 August in cinemas internationally Splitsville Michael Angelo Covino and Kyle Marvin have already made one acclaimed indie comedy together, The Climb (2019), which Covino directed, and both men wrote and acted in. Now they've reunited for a higher profile project opposite higher profile co-stars, Dakota Johnson and Adria Arjona. Marvin plays Carey, who has been married to Ashley (Arjona) for a year when she announces that she has been unfaithful to him and wants a divorce. When he tells the sorry tale to his wealthy friends Paul (Covino) and Julie (Johnson), they reveal that their marriage works so well because they are free to sleep with other people. Could this work for Carey and Ashley, too? And is Paul and Julie's relationship really as healthy as they make it sound? This "reliably funny romcom about the notion of open relationships makes for a delightful time", says Esther Zuckerman in IndieWire. "The film-makers have created an utterly endearing tale of four people trying to negotiate their own desires in the silliest ways possible with unexpected chaos around every turn." Released on 22 August in the US Freakier Friday Lindsay Lohan spent years in the Hollywood wilderness after she starred alongside Jamie Lee Curtis in 2003's Freaky Friday, so it's heartening to see her back on the big screen in the perfectly named sequel, Freakier Friday. In the first film (itself a remake of a Disney comedy from 1976), Lohan and Curtis played a teenage girl and her mother, Anna and Tess, who swapped bodies for a day. In Freakier Friday, Anna and Tess swap bodies with Anna's daughter and step-daughter – so both Lohan and Curtis get to pretend that they're teenagers. "[Freakier Friday] is a feelgood movie, which is what I want to give people," Lohan said in Elle. "And it's fun. When I saw the second cut, I wanted to get up and dance at the end." Released on 8 Aug in cinemas internationally The Naked Gun How can you make a Naked Gun film without the franchise's beloved star, the late Leslie Nielsen? The answer, it seems, is to cast Liam Neeson – not just because his name is so similar to Nielsen's, but because he knows how to be gruff and deadpan while surrounded by silliness. "Liam Neeson is probably the only actor alive in the 21st Century who could do what Leslie Nielsen did," the film's producer, Seth MacFarlane, said in Entertainment Weekly. The casting of Pamela Anderson as the love interest / femme fatale was an inspired move, too, especially as Anderson was so acclaimed for her previous film, The Last Showgirl. MacFarlane is hoping that his spoof cop thriller will be that rarest of things, a Hollywood comedy that is a cinema hit. "It's been a long time since a really high-profile hard comedy has been put out there. This is a true comedy, with a whole bunch of laughs. And hopefully, if the movie does well, it brings a few more of those kinds of movies back into our shared landscape." Released on 1 August in cinemas internationally The Thursday Murder Club Richard Osman's The Thursday Murder Club has been a publishing sensation since it came out in 2020. Not only was it a bestseller, but it helped established the genre of "cosy crime" detective novels – although Osman might not use that term himself. "When I started writing The Thursday Murder Club, the successful crime books of the time were mainly dark psychological thrillers with unreliable narrators," he told the BBC in 2023. "I just wanted to write an Agatha Christie-style thriller but with some humour and with a modern twist. A book I'd love to read, but couldn't find. I'd never heard the term 'cosy crime'." The inevitable screen adaptation is produced by Steven Spielberg and directed by Chris Columbus, the maker of Home Alone and the first two Harry Potter films. Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan, Ben Kingsley and Celia Imrie play four pensioners in the same retirement community who hit upon an unusual hobby: solving mysteries. Released on 28 August on Netflix Nobody 2 Bob Odenkirk, the star of Better Call Saul, doesn't look like a typical Hollywood action hero – but that's one reason why Nobody (2021) was so entertaining. The idea was that Odenkirk's character, Hutch, was a mild-mannered, middle-aged suburban dad. But it turned out that he had a secret past as a government assassin, so when he got tangled up with Russian mobsters, we had the cathartic pleasure of seeing this average-looking fellow participating in some of modern cinema's most gloriously brutal fight scenes. In the sequel, Hutch is on a summer holiday with his wife (Connie Nielsen) and children when a crime boss (Sharon Stone) interrupts their family time. "For me, what mattered in the second movie was: what's something that a couple could relate to as a tension in their life," Odenkirk said in Discussing Film. "One of the big ones in America is the inability to take a break and not work constantly or worry about our jobs… Hutch just can't do it. Most people can't do it. I've struggled to do it myself." Released on 15 August in cinemas internationally -- For more Culture stories from the BBC, follow us on Facebook and Instagram.
ABC News
30-06-2025
- Entertainment
- ABC News
Award-winning Paris thriller The Story of Souleymane shows the trials of food delivery workers
Story of Souleymane is bookended by the anticipation and aftermath of a life-changing interview, one where Guinean asylum seeker Souleymane (Abou Sangaré) finds out if he'll be granted residency in France. All background noise is momentarily blocked out, lending both Souleymane and the audience a rare moment of stillness. What: A tense three days in the life of an undocumented Guinean asylum seeker. Directed by: Boris Lojkine Starring: Abou Sangaré, Alpha Oumar Sow, Emmanuel Yovanie, Nina Meurisse Where: In cinemas now Likely to make you feel: Devastated Preceding these two scenes in the award-winning social realist drama from French director Boris Lojkine are nail-bitingly stressful sequences that chart Souleymane manoeuvring the opaque, highly flawed system that greets many asylum seekers upon arrival in Europe. Unfolding over the course of three days, the film traces Souleymane's pursuit of dignity, money and shelter — often without a single cent on him and fuelled almost exclusively by coffee. Without any legal working rights, Souleymane illicitly rents a food-delivery account from a fellow African migrant named Emmanuel (Emmanuel Yovanie), who's ascended a few rungs above him, to the point that he's able to exploit newcomers, and who takes a hefty cut of whatever Souleymane earns. As he awaits his interview with the immigration department that will adjudicate on his right to stay in France, he wends around Paris as a bicycle deliveryman, imperilling his life as he races against time to deliver food and make a semblance of a living wage. Further compounding his financial worries is a "fixer" of sorts named Barry (Alpha Oumar Sow), who he's paying to provide fake papers and feed him a pre-rehearsed story about why he fled Guinea. Souleymane has his own reasons for leaving, but he's afraid they won't be persuasive enough to grant him asylum, so he leans on this story of torture and incarceration — desperately memorising it as he crisscrosses Paris's heavy traffic on his bike. Story of Souleymane is incredibly tense and claustrophobic; he is always on the verge of colliding with the congested cavalcade of cars in inner-city Paris. Of all the things Souleymane lacks, time is one of his most finite resources. He hustles to pick up orders quickly enough so he can proceed with the next and rushes to the one scheduled bus that will transport him to a homeless shelter for the night. So much of his life is mired in soul-sapping cycles of bureaucracy, and when the film finally unhooks from its frenzied pace, it's because Souleymane is forced into doing something even more dehumanising: staking out Emmanuel, who refuses to take his calls and pay him his wages for a day of relentless food runs. Everyone is complicit in the subjugation of Souleymane and, by extension, asylum seekers like him who languish in the cracks of the system. This includes the state, which confers no legal working rights to people seeking asylum, while expecting them to survive without resorting to nefarious means; which demands a single story that's uncomplicated and easily digestible. It also includes the people who order food through delivery apps, desensitised to the plight of the people delivering their ease and comfort. The restaurants who cavalierly abuse the system and, in turn, the people who depend on it for their livelihood. The predators who flagrantly prey on asylum seekers who have little-to-no choices, like Barry and Emmanuel. There are glimmers of goodness from people, often when Souleymane least expects it. The OFPRA agent, played by Nina Meurisse, who interviews Souleymane in an incredibly stirring final scene, displays as much empathy as allowed in a tightly regulated system designed to degrade. Non-professional actor Sangaré — an undocumented 24-year-old migrant himself until after the film was released — is exquisite in his understated, carefully calibrated debut performance as Souleymane. The thin veneer Souleymane's built around himself to survive the drudgery of his everyday existence gives way at key junctures: when he speaks to his mum and girlfriend back home; when he meets with violence; when he's relaying his story in his own words. The way Sangaré transitions back and forth between moments of great pain, overwhelming love and feigned stoicism is masterful. The Paris we see in Story of Souleymane is necessarily removed from romanticised images of the City of Love. The Eiffel Tower and Louvre are far from view –Souleymane's Paris is closer to the ground, enmeshed in a community of mostly West African food-delivery drivers as they oscillate seamlessly between their mother tongues and the French of their colonisers. We glimpse the inner workings of homeless shelters, soup kitchens, asylum-seeker-processing centres, apartments in which Souleymane takes respite in. The sound design is dramatic yet realist; there's no lulling soundtrack to distract us from the minutiae of Souleymane's ruthless existence. The sound of his bicycle is magnified amongst the din of a city that chews people up and spits them back out. When the sound finally cuts out at the end, it's a relief. The outcome of the interview is unclear, but Souleymane's role in the dehumanising process is over and, with that, some of the tension of the preceding 48 hours. The Story of Souleymane is currently showing in selected cinemas.
Sydney Morning Herald
26-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
This French drama is one of the best films I've seen this year
The Story of Souleymane (L'histoire de Souleymane), ★★★★½ M, 94 min For many in the West, debates around immigration often involve a hierarchy of types: professional migrants and asylum seekers at the least problematic end of the spectrum, economic refugees with no clear humanitarian grounds to leave their homeland – accused of being queue jumpers and so despised by nationalists and right-wing populists – at the other. The genius of The Story of Souleymane, one of the best films I've seen this year, is that it demolishes those distinctions. It is a tale about an asylum seeker whose case, on paper at least, is flimsy. But after spending a couple of days (condensed into a brisk and hyper-tense 93 minutes) with Souleymane, you can't help hoping for anything but the best for him. Souleymane is a refugee from Guinea, working as a bicycle delivery rider in Paris, sleeping in a homeless shelter, and trying desperately to memorise the concocted story he is due to tell at his upcoming asylum hearing. The film opens as he's called for his interview – he's dabbing at a spot of blood he's just noticed on the cuff of his borrowed white shirt – and then tracks him over the two days leading up to that moment. Loading In its final heartbreaking scene, we move inside the interview room, where Souleymane desperately tries to convince his assessor (Nina Meurisse, who won a Cesar last year for her brief but touching performance) that he has a legitimate case to be offered succour by the state. Director Boris Lojkine (who co-wrote with Delphine Agut) employs a verite style that keeps us close to Souleymane, often right up in his face. We're there as he pedals hard through the teeming streets, dodging buses and not always dodging vehicles. We're there as he begs a restaurateur to hand over the pizza that was supposed to be ready 10 minutes ago. We're there as he sprints for the bus that will take him to the homeless shelter for the night. We're there in the wee hours of the morning when his phone alarm wakes him so he can book a bed in that very same shelter for the night to come. It's a tough, tough life, and Souleymane can barely catch a break. He's renting an online delivery account from a shady guy called Emmanuel (Emmanuel Yovanie), and has to sprint back to him occasionally for facial verification; in return, Emmanuel takes close to half his meagre earnings. Occasional moments of kindness from strangers or support workers sprinkle like fairy dust on an existence that is otherwise relentlessly harsh.
