cinehunch
A FILM WORTH A CLOSER LOOKTHE FEATURE PRESENTATION
IF THIS ONE STAYED WITH YOU
Keep the feeling.
SIMILAR PICKS / A PERSONAL CONNECTION
01
Why this pick
Like Welcome, it finds profound humanity in a displaced young man’s precarious European journey, balancing institutional indifference with small, deeply meaningful acts of solidarity.
02
Why this pick
This shares Welcome’s Channel-side migration context and moral urgency, but channels it through a stylised, compassionate community rallying around a boy in danger.
03
Why this pick
A coastal family’s encounter with migrants creates the same intimate collision between humane instinct, hostile policy, and the personal cost of choosing to help.
04
Why this pick
For Welcome’s unsentimental empathy and close attention to migrant survival, this follows a makeshift family trying to build safety while violence keeps pressing in.
05
Why this pick
Its spare, documentary-like immediacy makes a young refugee’s route toward Britain feel as physically exhausting and morally urgent as Bilal’s impossible crossing.
Finding the atmosphere, tension and little details that made this one stay with you.
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01 / THE STORY
The film tells the story of Simon Calmat (Vincent Lindon), a French swimming coach who is divorcing his wife Marion (Audrey Dana). Simon tries to help a young Iraqi-Kurd immigrant, Bilal Kayani (Firat Ayverdi), whose dream is to cross the English Channel from Calais in France to the United Kingdom by any means possible to be reunited with his girlfriend Mina (Derya Ayverdi). Meanwhile, Mina's father strongly opposes Bilal's plans as he wants to marry his daughter to her cousin who owns a restaurant. After being caught with other immigrants and returned to France, Simon gives him temporary refuge at his home after the young Bilal, nicknamed "Bazda" (runner, for his athletic abilities and love of football and Manchester United F.C. in particular) registers for swimming lessons, intending to train to be able to swim across the Channel. After police search Simon's apartment, Bilal goes on a final attempt and drowns 800 meters from the English coast while hiding from the coastguard. Simon then travels to inform Mina.
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02 / FACES IN THE FRAME
Simon
Marion
Bilal Kayani "Bazda"
le lieutenant de police
Bruno, le collègue de Marion
Le policier du centre de rétention
Policier centre de rétention
Avocate tribunal
