TIFF 2014 Preview: SambaPosted by Wilson Morales
August 31, 2014
Making its World Premiere at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival are directors Eric Toledano and Olivier Nakache’s latest film, Samba, starring Omar Sy, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Tahar Rahim, and Izia Higelin.
A recent migrant to France (Omar Sy) fights to stay in his adopted country with the help of a rookie immigration worker (Charlotte Gainsbourg), in this winning drama from the directors of the breakout hit Les Intouchables.
Three years ago, Les Intouchables became one of France’s biggest breakout hits, charming audiences across Europe and then the world. Much of its charm flowed from its co-star and Cesar Award winner for Best Actor, the exuberant Omar Sy. That performance soon led to a role in the X-Men franchise and the beginnings of a global career. If you’ve yet to discover the appeal of Omar Sy, just watch Samba.
Samba Cissé (Sy) is a migrant to France from Mali. Washing dishes in the back kitchen of a fancy hotel is hardly his European dream, but it gets worse when a bureaucratic slip-up lands him in detention. There he meets Alice (Charlotte Gainsbourg), an immigration worker new to the job and unused to the hard realities of life on France’s bottom rung. When Samba is released but slapped with an order to leave France, Alice begins to let her professional role bleed into her personal life.
