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Sylvie is a rather impulsive housewife and mother in her early 30s who in a combination of circumstances discovers the plight of refugees at Sangatte. She commits herself to helping one illegal immigrant to get away to England, even if it could endanger her life and that of her family.

Like others, Jean-Pierre Améris was shocked and outraged that after the closing of Sangatte [refugee camp] in 2003, volunteers had been charged for giving shelter to migrants trying to flee misery and war, sometimes both. He decided to make a film. It was turned down as a theatrical film project. Television was less nervous. Améris could have made a film noir based on Olivier Adam’s bleak À l’abri de rien, one of the literary successes of the fall season. He gives us a modern fable about the condition of migrants in the Calais region and the volunteers who help them. Isabelle Carré is radiant as Sylvie, an ordinary, capricious young woman who discovers a reality she ignored until her chance meeting with one of these migrants (Nazmi Kirik, superb). She then throws herself body and soul, and despite the misgivings of husband, children and friends, into volunteer work. A touching, poetic film.

Claude Baudry

France - 2007 - Colour

Director Jean-Pierre Ameris

Production Escazal Films, 5, rue du Cirque, 75008 Paris, France Tél : +33 (0)1 5856 7878 Fax : +33 (0)1 4256 0250 E-mail : escazalfilms@wanadoo.fr Co-Production France 3, TV5 Monde