Identity

Every day, Jay travels the length and breadth of Tokyo in his taxi, looking for his daughter Lily. In the nine years since he has separated from his wife, he has never been able to get custody of his daughter. Having given up hope of ever seeing her again, he is about to move back to France when Lily hops in his cab. But she doesn’t recognize him.

In the snowy seaside town of Sokcho, 25-year-old Soo-Ha works at a guesthouse. She drifts between her mother’s fish stall and her boyfriend until a French artist’s arrival stirs questions about her identity. As winter deepens, Soo-Ha and the artist form an unspoken connection through food and art.

Twenty-seven-year-old Nour has immigrated illegally to Marseille, where he and his friends live a marginal and festive life. From 1990 to 2000, Nour loves, grows older and clings to his dreams, damaged by the melancholy of an irreversible exile.

As he pedals through the streets of Paris to deliver meals, Souleymane repeats his story. In two days, he has to go through his asylum application interview, the key to obtaining papers. But Souleymane is not ready.

Touda only dreams of one thing: being a Sheikha, a traditional Moroccan performer empowered by the lyrics of the fierce female poets who came before her – with their songs of resistance, love and emancipation. Performing every evening in provincial bars under the lustful gaze of men, Touda plans to set her sights on leaving her small town for the bright lights of Casablanca where she hopes to be recognized as a true artist and also secure a better future for her and her son

Emilie attempts to understand the mystery of her universe: her mother Meaud. Magical grandmother, broken child, punk mother, spontaneous feminist, she fascinates as much as she disrupts. How do you give your children the love that you were denied yourself? How do you nurture your inner child when having gone through childhood trauma? Jump into an intimate odyssey, an intergalactic journey into our own common psyche.

It all begins with photos of a family. An unknown family, yet one we feel we know. In the center: this boy. Who is he? What is his story? What if each individual were also the unwitting hero of a tale? A dizzying family investigation, where reality and fiction intertwine to the point of sometimes becoming indistinguishable.

In 1870s France, Rosalie is a young woman unlike any other, she hides a secret. She was born with a face and body covered in hair. She is a genuine bearded lady, but she doesn't want to become a common freakshow. She's concealed her peculiarity all her life to stay safe, shaving to fit in. Until Abel, an indebted bar owner unaware of her secret, marries her for her dowry. Rosalie's only wish is to be truly seen as the woman she is despite a difference she no longer wishes to hide. But will Abel be able to love her once he finds out the truth?

1980, Abadan. The capital of the Iranian oil industry is resisting an Iraqi siege. Fourteen-year-old Omid has braved the siege and stayed in the city with his grandfather, waiting for his elder brother to return from the front line. Along with Omid, a gallery of unusual characters have all remained in the city for their own reasons, and each resists in his or her own way. But the noose is tightening as Omid tries to save his loved ones, by embarking them on an abandoned boat he finds in Abadan’s port, that will become his ark.

"En revoyant nos films super huit pris entre 1972 et 1981, il m’est apparu que ceux-ci constituaient non seulement une archive familiale mais aussi un témoignage sur les goûts, les loisirs, le style de vie et les aspirations d’une classe sociale, au cours de la décennie qui suit 1968. Ces images muettes, j’ai eu envie de les intégrer dans un récit au croisement de l’histoire, du social et aussi de l’intime, en utilisant mon journal personnel de ces années-là."- Annie Ernaux

In the late 1980s, Rose moves from Africa to the Paris suburbs with her two young sons. Spanning 30 years from their arrival in France to the present day, Léonor Serraille’s follow-up to her Caméra d’Or-winner Jeune Femme (Cannes 2017) is a moving chronicle about the construction and deconstruction of an ordinary family.