Le chant d'Ahmed

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Movie
Original title Le chant d'Ahmed
Country of production France
original language French
Arabic
Publishing year 2019
length 30 minutes
Rod
Director Foued Mansour
script Foued Mansour
production Rafael Andrea Soatto
music Abdelkader Chaou
camera Pascale Marin
cut Yannis Polinacci
occupation

Le chant d'Ahmed is a 2019 French short film directed by Foued Mansour .

action

Ahmed has been working in a public bathing establishment for 29 years , lives in an apartment with shared bathrooms and has a wife and four children who live in the Maghreb and whom he practically no longer knows. His job is to keep the shower rooms clean and to ensure that vacant cubicles are re-occupied and that no bathers use a cubicle for too long. One day he is introduced to a new colleague called Mike, whom the youth welfare office sends. Mike was given a two-year suspended sentence and has a very bad relationship with his parents.

The calm Ahmed soon gets into conflict with Mike, so Mike secretly sleeps in the common room at work and smokes in the employee cloakrooms, although it is forbidden. Over time, however, Ahmed sympathizes with Mike and smokes a cigarette with him. Mike reveals his dream of going to Canada after his probation period and becoming a rapper there. He raps a song for Ahmed. Although Ahmed claims that he thinks the song is good, he lacks the basic understanding of this type of music and Mike feels laughed at. The next day, the two of them clash because Mike flirts with a Roma girl during work hours. Ahmed rebukes him. When they later work together in the washroom, Mike begins to sing the song Le roi du balai , which is about Ahmed, the Broom King. Ahmed forbids him to sing this song and a water fight ensues between the two of them.

The next day, Mike is absent and Ahmed's boss vows never to take another problematic case to work. Ahmed decides to call his family after years of radio silence. The phone call with one of his sons is peaceful. Shortly thereafter, the girl Mike had flirted with appears and takes Mike's things from the common room. Ahmed looks out the window and sees Mike and the girl driving away on a motorcycle. Mike waves goodbye to him.

production

The Volksbad des Haies in Paris, where the film was set

Le chant d'Ahmed was the fifth short film that Foued Mansour made as a director. The shooting took place in 2018 in the Volksbad Bain-douche des Haies in Paris ; other locations (including Ahmed's apartment) were the dormitories for migrant workers in the Foyer Beccaria and the Foyer Bisson.

In the credits the title Le roi du balai by Djurdjura from 1983 can be heard. The song became famous through the television film Pas perdus by Jean-Daniel Simon , which was broadcast in 1983 as part of the Cinéma 16 series and for the first time placed a guest worker in the focus of the plot. Foued Mansour saw the film as a child; Le chant d'Ahmed was filmed under the working title Le roi du ballet . Foued Mansour chose the public baths as the venue because he himself had to visit public baths as a child and adolescent. If he felt them as a humiliation as a child, he later realized that they allowed him to appear as an "average child" in everyday life despite the poverty of his family. Foued Mansour cast the role of Ahmed with the amateur actor Mohamed Sadi, who worked as a kitchen boy in a restaurant in the Goutte d'Or district . Other roles were filled with professional actors.

Le chant d'Ahmed had its premiere on February 2, 2019 at the Festival du Court-Métrage de Clermont-Ferrand and subsequently ran at the Palm Springs International ShortFest, among others .

Awards

Le chant d'Ahmed received the Bridging the Borders award at the Palm Springs International ShortFest . The film was nominated for a César in the Best Short Film category in 2020 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Information according to the credits of the film.
  2. ^ A b c Clotilde Couturier: Breakfast with Le chant d'Ahmed . labrasserieducourt.com, February 7, 2019.
  3. ^ Yohan Levy: Foued Mansour: "Aujourd'hui, tu peux faire le court de la décennie, aller aux César et à Berlin, et te retrouver au RMI" . formatcourt.com, October 3, 2019.
  4. ↑ Le chant d'Ahmed on unifrance.org