EXILS A film by Tony Gatlif With Romain Duris * Lubna Azabal

(France, 2004, In French with English Subtitles, 103 minutes)

Distribution

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SYNOPSIS As extravagant as it may sound, Zano one day comes up to his lover Naïma and suggests that they both set out for Algiers: why don’t they cross France and Spain to eventually reach Algeria and discover the land their parents had to flee decades ago? Lost in the perils of immigration, these two children of the Diaspora almost defiantly take to the road with music as their only belonging. Intoxicated with freedom, they let Andalucia's vibrant sensuality engulf them – before they make up their minds to cross the Mediterranean. In an environment of chance meetings, techno rhythms and flamenco music, Zano and Naïma go backwards on the path to exile – hopefully claiming their identities at the end of the journey.

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DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT "Those who have left us always come back to us." The film didn't originate from a mere idea, but from my yearning to consider my very wounds. It has taken me 43 years to return to the land of my childhood – Algeria. Almost 4,500 miles on the road, by train, by car, by boat or just walking.

Looking reality in the face As far as EXILS goes, I had to stand as close to matter as possible – be it human, animal, mineral or vegetal matter. I meant to encompass the characters' physical sensuality. Characters exploring or escaping from each other's bodies. Bodies hardly touched, or clinging to each other. Tense or lustful bodies, perspiring and revealing themselves by the skin or scars. Characters find themselves in countrysides or off-screen. Through constantly open, attentive camerawork, I wanted to embrace reality and shoot Paris' highway seen from the top of a high-rise building in the projects, Algiers' Cemetery or Seville's main square seen from the ground at daybreak. "I'm an alien wherever I go" (Naïma) Illegal immigrants from Africa,] Morocco and Algeria living in slums in the outskirts of Almeria have exposed their truths during the shooting. We found out about Algeria's earthquake while we were shooting in Seville. My neighbourhood, my school, the seaside where I used to swim when I was a kid – all my familiar sights were wiped out by fate's hand. It was chaos. Through the history of Zano's grandfather, I felt like paying emotional tribute to my very first schoolteacher, a humanist who made me fall in love with films.

Music : from urban rhythms to Flamenco "Music is my religion" (Zano) Music is part of the journey. The film is trance-like. Its climax is a Sufi cathartic trance. Songs' lyrics sound like the continuation of dialogues. And music heals wounded souls. Music follows its own path. It also travels the road along with Zano and Naïma to return to its roots.

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Music originates with Zano. It's urban, electronic music, with a tachycardic rhythm. Zano listens to it at high volume, shoving his ears against the speakers. In Andalucia music comes dangerously close to Macanita's Flamenco. With the young gypsies from the Tres Mil Viviendas projects all hell breaks loose at the Carboneria, Seville's mythical place where youngsters from all over the world gather at night's end and get drunk on Flamenco.

Sufism North Africa is a highly spiritual land where popular beliefs andcreeds have determined relations to the invisible, to the world's enchantment and to transcendence – the universe is allegedly inhabited by spirits that we are supposed to domesticate or placate with offerings and shows of respect. The Sufi Brotherhood is both spiritual and therapeutic. It performs healing rituals based on placating relationships between secret entities and possessed human beings. Of all rituals, trance is the most spectacular: individuals can then escape from themselves. They gain enough strength to overcome their inhibitions, fears and frustrations. In the film the trance has been based on a true ceremony. Musicians of all kinds adopted a binary rhythm and not a ternary rhythm as they traditionally do. Ternary rhythm belongs in the Western world. It was best suited to Zano and Naïma for them to enter trance.

Tony Gatlif

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ABOUT TONY GATLIF

Born in Algiers on September 10, 1948, Tony Gatlif left Algeria – like so many others – at the turn of the 1960s. He discovered film at school – his schoolteacher had bought a 16mm projector and would show films to be discussed in class on a weekly basis. "We saw Jean Vigo's films, John Ford's, Chaplin's... The film library made its way to my wasteland. That's how I learnt about films." When he arrived in France emptyhanded, he became a street kid and experienced delinquency and juvenile correction homes. During the day he would find shelter in the Grands Boulevards' movie theatres to get some sleep. One evening in 1966 he decided to meet with actor Michel Simon – whom he idolised – who appeared on stage in René de Obaldia's WIND IN THE BRANCHES OF THE SASSAFRAS. At the end of the performance he let himself into the actor's dressing room and Simon wrote him a recommendation letter for his agent. Tony Gatlif managed to sign up for an acting class. Five years later he appeared on the TNP stage in an Edward Bond play directed by Claude Régy. It was at that time that Tony Gatlif wrote his first script based on his experience of correction homes – LA RAGE AU POING (Raging Fists). In 1975, he directed his first feature film, LA TÊTE EN RUINE, never released in France. Three years later LA TERRE AU VENTRE dealt with the story of a French Algerian settler and her four daughters set against the Algeria War of Independence. "At the time," remembers the director, "I was fascinated by Andreas Baader's story and I shot this pictureabout the Algeria Revolution with him at the back of my mind." In 1981 he went to Spain to direct CORRE GITANO featuring Gypsies from Grenade and Seville. The film was never released in France either. "It was the very first picture made about Gypsies’ condition." But it was not until LES PRINCES that Tony Gatlif really garnered attention. Critically acclaimed, unaffected LES PRINCES is about those Gypsies who decided to settle down in the Paris suburbs. Gatlif meant the film to be truly hardhitting. With LES PRINCES the director also met Gérard Lebovici, who would become one of his lifelong acquaintances. "He told me at the end of a screening that he'd feel miserable if I didn't let him take care of the film. He then went on to show the film to Guy Debord, the Situationist Movement leader who was responsible for slogans that went like 'Les Princes are no traitors' and that we posted on the walls in the streets of Paris. " Producer Lebovici came up with a film project about Jacques Mesrine shortly afterwards – but Gatlif turned it down. Lebovici then offered him complete freedom : the director seized the opportunity to write and direct RUE DU DÉPART. The film deals with a teenage girl who runs away from home, seeking for her father's image. PLEURE PAS MY LOVE proved that Gatlif's sole interest was not drop-out characters – as his detractors would have it. He then went on to make GASPARD ET ROBINSON, a buddy-movie social comedy dealing with unemployment. In 1992 Tony Gatlif began production on LATCHO DROM (Safe Journey), a true tribute to Gypsy music. With only a limited crew,he walked in the path of the Gypsies trough a musical journey that took him from Rajasthan to Andalucia, Egypt, Turkey, Rumania, Hungary and France for a

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whole year. Presented in the category "Un Certain Regard" at the Cannes Film Festival the film was well received. MONDO, Gatlif's follow-up, was inspired by the director's meeting with writer Jean-Marie G. Le Clezio. It is the story of a ten year-old, parentless child who one day lands in Nice. "MONDO is both a pearl and a knife. It's a jewel set against a stack of daggers." In 1997, GADJO DILO portrayed a young "Gadjo" ("foreigner" in Rom language) arriving in a Gypsy village in Rumania and looking for a missing singer. The film was critically and publicly acclaimed, both in France and abroad. One year later Gatlif reunited GADJO DILO's couple – Romain Duris and Rona Hartner – to helm libertarian JE SUIS NÉ D'UNE CIGOGNE. In 2000, Spanish Flamenco ballet star Antonio Canales made his screen debut in VENGO, a story of two Andalucian families competing with each other. It was a tribute to Flamenco music and Andalucia : "I meant it as a song of praise of the Mediterranean." One year later, SWING was shot in the East of France and told of the meeting of Max, a little boy aspiring to become a great guitarist "like Django Reinhardt", and Swing, a Gypsy kid. EXILS is Tony Gatlif's fourteenth feature film.

Filmography 1973 MAX L’INDIEN (short) 1973 MAUSSANE (short) 1975 LA TÊTE EN RUINES (unreleased) 1978 LA TERRE AU VENTRE 1982 CORRE GITANO (unreleased) 1983 CANTA GITANO (short) 1983 LES PRINCES 1985 RUE DU DÉPART 1989 PLEURE PAS MY LOVE 1990 GASPARD ET ROBINSON 1993 LATCHO DROM 1995 LUCUMI, L’ENFANT RUMBEIRO DE CUBA (short) 1996 MONDO 1998 GADJO DILO 1999 JE SUIS NÉ D’UNE CIGOGNE 2000 VENGO 2002 SWING 2004 VISIONS D’EUROPE “Paris by night” (Arte series) 2004 EXILS

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ROMAIN DURIS Filmography 1994 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004

LE PÉRIL JEUNE by Cédric Klapisch MÉMOIRE D'UN JEUNE CON by Patrick Aurignac CHACUN CHERCHE SON CHAT by Cédric Klapisch DOBERMAN by Jan Kounen GADJO DILO by Tony Gatlif DÉJÀ MORT by Olivier Dahan JE SUIS NÉ D'UNE CIGOGNE by Tony Gatlif LES KIDNAPPEURS by Graham Guit PEUT-ÊTRE by Cédric Klapisch LE PETIT POUCET by Olivier Dahan BEING LIGHT by Jean-Marc Barr, Pascal Arnold C.Q. by Roman Coppola L'AUBERGE ESPAGNOLE by Cédric Klapisch 17 FOIS CÉCILE CASSARD by Christophe Honoré ADOLPHE by Benoit Jacquot LE DIVORCE by James Ivory PAS SI GRAVE by Bernard Rapp ARSÈNE LUPIN by Jean-Paul Salomé EXILS by Tony Gatlif

LUBNA AZABAL Filmography 1996 1998 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004

LE SOURIRE DES FEMMES (short) by Stéphane Vuillet J'ADORE LE CINÉMA (short) by Vincent Lanoo LES SIESTES GRENADINES by Mahmoud Ben Mahmoud PURE FICTION by Marian Handwerker LOIN by André Téchiné ARAM by Robert Kechichian UN MONDE PRESQUE PAISIBLE by Michel Deville 25 DEGRÉS EN HIVER by Stéphane Vuillet VIVA LALDJÉRIE by Nadir Mokneche EXILS by Tony Gatlif

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CAST Zano Romain Naïma Lubna Leïla Leïla Habib Habib Saïd Gacem

DURIS AZABAL MAKHLOUF CHEIK ZOUHIR

CREW Written and directed by Director of Photography Sound Original score Music recording Mix Editor Sound editor Production designer Production manager 1st assistant director Casting director

Tony GATLIF Céline BOZON Philippe WELSH Tony GATLIF Delphine MANTOULET Emmanuel GALLET Dominique GABORIEAU Monique DARTONNE Adam WOLNY Brigitte BRASSART Laurent DUSOTHOIT Marina OBRADOVIC Eve GUILLOU

A Princes Films production With the participation of Pyramide • Cofimage 15 • Canal + • TPS • TV5 Monde With the participation of Nikkatsu Corporation With the participation of Naïve France • 2004 • 35mm • Color • Scope • Dolby SRD • 1h43

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