In an evicted building in the City of Lights, Yi-En and Junior —who left China and the DRC behind— try to turn their squatted apartment into a home. One day, they are joined by Hamzah, Yi-En’s Palestinian classmate, who carries his own sense of exile. The trio soon share everything, but while their odd family grows their carefully constructed world turns vulnerable to outside forces, some much bigger than themselves.
Isabelle Tollenaere
Born in Ghent (Belgium) in 1984, she is a Belgian filmmaker making hybrid short and feature length films that are simultaneously poetic, political, and playful. Her practice focuses on the interplay between the rapid transformation of our physical world and the human experience of time and memory. Her filmography includes short films such as ‘Viva Paradis’ (2011), ‘The Remembered Film’ (2018) and ‘The Fruit Tree’ (2022), and feature-length documentaries like ‘Battles’ (2015) and ‘Victoria’ (2020), which have been widely presented and awarded, at the Venice, Berlinale Forum (Caligari Film Prize 2020), IFFR (Fipresci award 2015), Centre Pompidou, Viennale, Visions du Réel, FIDMarseille, IDFA, CPH:DOX, IndieLisboa (Special Jury Prize 2020), among others. ‘Paris Paris’ (2026) is her first scripted feature film.
DIRECTOR
Isabelle Tollenaere
SCREENPLAY
Isabelle Tollenaere
CINEMATOGRAPHY
Thomas Verijke
EDITOR
Isabelle Tollenaere
SOUND
Liesbeth De Ceulaer, Kwinten Van Laethem
PRODUCTION
Bo De Group, Hans Everaert
PRODUCTION COMPANY
Menuetto Film
CAST
Yi-En Chen, Mahmoud Beshtawi, David Mutamba, Mahdi Ahmadi, Shamsia Ahmadi, Bridget Jill Beledo, Billy Diarra, Varlee B. Fofana
