Benin, France / 2007 / 86mins / Drama, Speculative Fiction / French

This award-winning film examines immigration with a touch of geo-political irony. The story follows two French citizens, Oliver, an engineer, and Pauline, a teacher, who decide they want to live in the prosperous United States of Africa. After failing to obtain an entry visa, they decided to emigrate illegally, and they then begin a journey of hardships and discovery as fugitives of the state. Winner of the Best Sets Award and The ECOWAS African Integration Award.

Sylvestre Amoussou

Sylvestre Amoussou, born 1964, is a Beninese actor turned film director, best known for his 2006 film Africa Paradis, a satire on immigration. Amoussou was born in December 1964 in Benin. After living in France for twenty years, and experiencing the lack of interesting roles offered to black actors in France, he decided to make his own movies. In Africa Paradis, the politics of immigration is turned on its head: the economic fortunes of Europe and Africa are reversed, and immigrants struggle to gain entrance to Africa from Europe. Amoussou's anti-colonial film The African Storm (2017) received an enthusiastic reception from audiences at the Pan-African Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou (FESPACO) and received the festival's Silver Stallion of Yennega prize. Learn More