FATIMA

Separated from her husband, Fatima (Soria Zeroual) works as a cleaning lady as she struggles to bring up her two daughters, a rebellious teen and a med student. Intelligent, courageous and sensitive, yet cut off from her adopted land by her inability to speak French, she contemplates the gulf separating her from a France where she is all but invisible. She also notes the growing gap between her and her daughters but stays strong, keeping a diary of her thoughts and accepting her fate. Until she falls down a flight of stairs . . . Adapted from Prayer to the Moon, the autobiographical memoir by cleaner-turned-writer Fatima Elayoubi, Fatima echoes the naturalistic approach of Mike Leigh and the Dardenne brothers. Faucon’s film, true to life and free of effects, is carried by the compelling screen presence of Zeroual, herself a mother and cleaner off screen. A sober, moving portrait and a film that, like Fatima Elayoubi, “pays homage to those who settle in a country whose language they do not speak and raise the next generation there.”