THE SECRET OF THE GRAIN (La Graine et le mulet) West Coast Premiere Drama France, 2007 In French with English subtitles 35mm/1.85/Color/Dolby SRD DTS/151 min Awards: 2007 Venice Mostra Special Jury Prize, 2008 César award for Best Film, Best Director, Best original screenplay, Best New Actress, Lumiere award for Best Director and Best New Actress Official Selection: Venice Mostra (2007), Dubai International Film Festival (2007), Rotterdam International Film Festival (2008), Tribeca Film Festival (2008) Written & directed by: Abdellatif Kechiche Cinematography: Lubomir Bakchev Editor: Ghalya Lacroix, Camille Toubkis Produced by: Claude Berri Production Companies: Pathé Renn Productions, Hirsh Co-production: France 2 Cinéma With: Habib Boufares (Slimane), Hafsia Herzi (Rym), Faridah Benkhetache (Karima), Abdelhamid Aktouche (Hamid), Mohamed Benabdeslem (Riadh), Bouraouïa Marzouk (Souad), Alice Houri (Julia), Cyril Favre (Sergueï), Leila D’Issernio (Lilia), Abdelkader Djeloulli (Kader) www.lagraineetlemulet-lefilm.com Starring a cast of newcomers, including award-winning actress Hafsia Herzi, The Secret of the Grain is the portrait of a French family of North-African origin, struggling amidst financial hardship and family tensions. The film tells the story of Slimane (Habib Boufares), a sixty-year-old shipyard worker who buys a boat and remodels it as a couscous restaurant, to make a better life for himself and his family. Through Slimane, Abdellatif Kechiche explores deeper issues of racism and discrimination, faced by immigrants who cannot find their place in French society and have difficulty relating to their French-born children. ABDELLATIF KECHICHE Abdellatif Kechiche started his career as an actor in the 1980s. In 2001, his directorial debut Blame It on Voltaire won a Golden Lion for First Film at the 2000 Venice Mostra. He then became known in France when his second feature Games of Love and Chance unexpectedly won 3 César awards in 2005. The Secret of the Grain also won multiple César awards in 2008, including Best Director and Best Screenplay. Often inspired by his own experience as an immigrant, Abdellatif Kechiche represents a new generation of successful minority filmmakers. PRESS “A cine-verite tour-de-force, Abdellatif Kechiche's follow-up to the award-winning L'Esquive loads an apparently slight story set against the background of France 's first-and-second generation Maghrebi immigrant communities with surprising dramatic weight.” (Screen International) “Much, much more than a conventional tale of triumph-over-adversity, director Kechiche does well never to resort to sentimentality and manages to maintain a realistic tone throughout.” (Time Out London) “Capturing the love, loyalty and internecine squabbles of a large family struggling to get by in an often unwelcoming land, the film features some excellent performances in its tale of a hard-working family patriarch who decides to open a restaurant on a boat.” (The Hollywood Reporter)