Director

Claus Drexel

France | 2020 | 93 min | French

• Producer Etienne Comar, Didar Domehri
• Production Company Arches Films, Maneki Films
• Screenplay Claus Drexel, Olivier Brunhes
• Cinematography Philippe Guilbert
• Editing Anne Souriau
• Sound Etienne Carton, Maxime Cordon, Emmanuel de Boissieu, Hervé Guyader, Cyril Moisson
• Cast Catherine Frot, Dominique Frot, Mahamadou Yaffa
• Contacts

  Memento Films International

  internationalsales@memento-films.com

About the Film

Under the same sky and stars, there are two cities with the same name and geographical boundaries: the first is Paris, the city of lights, culture, fashion, and glamorous life, and the second is the Paris of the marginalized—that harsh, cold city whose streets host hundreds of homeless people without a roof that protects them from the cold. Those people do not necessarily come together in a common nationality, race, or even language, as much as they are united by alienation in the city they live in without belonging. The events of Under the Stars of Paris take place in this world of the marginalized.

Christine is an old, homeless woman who lives on the city streets with no shelter or goal other than finding some free food and a bit of warmth. Her life is upended on a cold winter night with the appearance of a Burkinabe child, Suli, who explains—despite the lack of a common language between them—that he is lost. Together, they embark on an almost impossible journey to search for his mother. During that journey, the dynamics of their relationship change. What began as a forced situation soon turns into an adoptive relationship that gives each of them the human warmth they had been looking for, all without a common language or anything that unites them except their need for one another. And so, Suli and Christine roam the unforgiving streets of Paris in search of the mother.

In his second feature-length film, Claus Drexel uses a very frugal language. We are not drowning in the romance of the beauty of Paris like in Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Amélie, or in its ugliness like in Mathieu Kassovitz’s Hate. But rather, we contemplate it from a distance that is almost documentary in character, while we focus on only one element: the marginalized person. The constant need to embrace one another for shelter from the cruelty and horror of loneliness.

Amir Ramses