‘It’s been fun’ Star of hit French film won at Cannes – but is still fighting for residency

Irregular migration and stymied deportation orders have long loomed over French politics, issues that were exploited in recent elections by a far-right eager to stoke fears.

- Ashifa Kassam European community affairs correspondent

Now an award-winning film is amplifying the voices of those who have been shut out of the conversation: undocumented migrants themselves.

“It’s been quite fun,” said Abou Sangaré, who plays the lead role in L’Histoire de Souleymane, or Souleymane’s Story. “We’ve had tons of requests for interviews, from radio to television.”

The film, which casts Sangaré as a young asylum seeker, unfolds at a frenetic pace as he races to cobble together an income as a delivery rider and prepare for an interview to secure residency papers.

For Sangaré – who won best actor in the Cannes film festival’s Un Certain Regard competition for his performance – the film is a blend of fiction and his own reality; since arriving in France at the age of 16 from Guinea, he has lacked permanent legal status, leaving him, like thousands of others in France, fighting deportation.