A Season in France

A Season in France is a 2017 French drama film directed by Mahamat Saleh Haroun. It was screened in the Special Presentations section at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival. The film opened the Afrika Filmfestival in Louvain, Belgium in April 2018 and is distributed in the Benelux by Imagine. Cast Sandrine Bonnaire Eriq Ebouaney Plot The film is set in 2016. Abbas Mahadjir was a French teacher in the Central African Republic. He fled with his family, including his brother, from one of the civil wars that struck his country. He is haunted by the memory of his wife, killed during their flight. He now lives in France [the film is set in the Paris suburbs] with his two young children, Asma and Yacine, who go to school. He works in a fruit and flower market, and skips between borrowed and rented apartments. He meets Carole at the market, a florist of Polish origin with whom he establishes a relationship. When his asylum application is rejected by OFPRA (Office français de protection des réfugiés et apatrides), Abbas initiates an appeal. When this in turn is rejected, he is served with an 'obligation to leave' notice, within 30 days. Now without work and housing, and "sans papiers", Abbas and his children find refuge with Carole. His brother, who had been a philosophy lecturer in the CAR, also has his asylum application rejected, and he self-immolates in the immigration office, later dying from his injuries.