Dheepan (2015)
Overview
Thursday, April 16, 2026 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM
Learning Beyond the Classics: Grand Dames
Directed by Jacques Audiard
With Jesuthasan Antonythasan, Kalieaswari Srinivasan, Claudine Vinasithamby
Rated R, 115 minutes, DCP
In English and French and Tamil with English subtitles
Winner of the Palme d'Or at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival, Dheepan may not be Jacques Audiard's biggest film in terms of impact in the United States; however, a decade later it is an interesting film and a data point of where French cinema stood in relation to colonialism and migration. Title character Dheepan (Jesuthasan Antonythasan) is a Tamil Tiger soldier during the Sri Lankan Civil War who in the wake of his side's loss seeks political asylum. Assuming a new identity, he agrees to pose with a woman and a daughter as a family in order to be accepted into France. Once in Paris, the three attempt to forge a family to offset the pressures of being strangers in a strange land.
