Sun 6 Dec 6.30pm
Duke of York’s Picturehouse
DIRECTOR: Jacques Audiard.
STARRING: Tahar Rahim, Neils Arestrup, Adel Bencherif, Hichem Yacoubi, Reda Kateb. France 2009. 150 mins.

Director of THE BEAT THAT MY HEART SKIPPED, Jacques Audiard’s new feature film A PROPHET captivated audiences at Cannes and seized the Grand Prize with its raw and poetic aesthetic. Ferocious and compassionate, A PROPHET follows the descent of a young man into the hierarchies of the criminal underworld. Sentenced to 6 years in prison, nineteen-yearold French-Arab Malik El Djebena (Tarik Rahim) is approached by a Corsican gang and subsequently forced to adapt to the vicious rules of the clashing power factions within the prison. The violence, choreographed with the cooperation of ex-convicts, crashes to life with sharp authenticity. Initially a lamb tothe slaughter in this warren of crime, newcomer Rahim is outstanding as Malik, bringing a vulnerability to the rough social realism he faces and his need to survive in the system.