French filmmaker Jacques Audiard was well on his way to international acclaim. He won best screenplay at Cannes for 1996’s “A Self-Made Hero,” while "Read My Lips" and "The Beat That My Heart Skipped," were two of the best French films of the early aughts. But it wasn’t until 2009 that he was back at Cannes and won the Grand Prix with his arresting crime film “A Prophet,” a stunning drama some might argue should have won the Palme d’Or. The picture was also nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 82nd Academy Awards and thus thrust the director into a new stratosphere.
Following “Rust And Bone” in 2012, Audiard is back in Palme d’Or contention with “Dheepan” a drama about a Tamil freedom fighter who flees to Europe near the end of the Sri Lankan Civil War. With a makeshift family hoping to claim asylum, they only face further violence in the Parisian slums. Antonythasan Jesuthasan stars and he is one of three non-professional Tamil leads. Here’s the official synopsis:
To escape the civil war in Sri Lanka, a former soldier, a young woman and a little girl pose as a family. They end up settling in a housing project outside Paris. They barely know one another, but try to build a life together.
Alexandre Desplat, who arguably launched his composing career in a major way off the back of “A Prophet” isn’t scoring this one, but instead, electronic deep house artist Nicolas Jaar has provided the music which sounds like an exciting prospect considering the way Audiard melds visuals with music. The first clip from “Dheepan” has arrived and we couldn’t be more excited for this one. Watch the clip below and stay tuned for our review.