Jacques Audiard
A Prophet watches a young man build an empire from a prison cell; Rust and Bone and Dheepan find tenderness inside brutal circumstances. Audiard makes muscular genre films that keep faith with the marginal.
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A Prophet
Sentenced to six years in prison, Malik El Djebena is alone in the world and can neither read nor write. On his arrival at the prison, he seems younger and more brittle than the others detained there.
Defining films
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Both portray the French immigrant experience with unflinching intimacy, identity forged under pressure.
The French political cinema tradition, genre as exposure of systemic violence and institutional corruption.
Gomorrah shares A Prophet's grammar, the criminal organization as a perfect mirror of legitimate society.
Both Sony Pictures Classics in the US, the global auteur prestige circuit at its most discerning.
In their own words
A Prophet had a huge impact on me for its tonal control and its confidence.
I saw Mean Streets a lot when I was growing up and it taught me how to put raw energy on screen, how to film friendship in that way.