Le Doux Pays de mon enfance

This the story of a guy who wanted to kill himself because no one would believe his name was Roger Joly. But Roger did in fact exist for 17 years. Until the day everything went to pieces. The court has declared that Roger Joly was in fact Aziz Bensala. A judge sentenced him to five years in prison for usurpation of identity, forgery and use of forgeries and swindling. So Roger tried to hang himself that very night with the bed sheets of his prison cell. It’s not the prison sentence that broke Aziz’s spirit. He was no stranger to prison. But this time, the court had rummaged through the life of this Roger he claimed to be. Piece by piece, the judge had analyzed the puzzle in minute detail, exposed the fraud and delivered his conclusions: Roger Joly was a fiction. The man was sent back to the illegal immigrant he didn’t want to be; to this Aziz Bensala, born near Gabès, Tunisia, who went to school barefoot and had a wretched childhood; who had arrived in Marseilles in the mid-70s, after his brother, to find work that didn’t exist back home; who wanted to become part of a country, a culture he admired, to the point of inventing a new identity. It’s a forgotten seat belt that hastened the end of the story.

France - 2005 - 1 h 41 mn - Super 16 mm - Colour

Director
Jacques Renard
Script
Jacques Renard
Camera
Jean Monsigny
Sound
Alain Sempé
Sets
Jean-Paul Ginet
Editing
Elisabeth Moulinier
Music
Angélique Nachon, Jean-Claude Nachon
Cast
Daniel Russo, Isabelle Renauld, Yohana Rocher, Thomas Doucet, Quentin Grosset, Rabah Loucif, Saïda Bekkouche

Production
Les Productions Franco-American,
99 rue de la République,
92800 Puteaux, France
Tél : +33 (1) 4145 0957
Fax : +33 (0)1 4506 3947
E-mail : mail@francoamericanfilms.com

Co-Production
Sylicone

with the participation of
France 2, TV5 Monde

Sales
Europe Images International,
24, quai Alphonse Le Gallo,
92513 Boulogne cedex, France
Tél : +33 (0)1 5595 5827
Fax : +33 (0)1 5595 5810
E-mail : emilie.huc@europeimages.com