The Secret of the Grain (2007)

In southern France, a Franco-Arabic shipyard worker along with his partner's daughter pursues his dream of opening a restaurant.

Director:

Abdellatif Kechiche

Writer:

Abdellatif Kechiche

Stars:

Habib Boufares, Hafsia Herzi, Farida Benkhetache

19 wins & 9 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Habib Boufares	...	Slimane Beiji
Hafsia Herzi	...	Rym
Farida Benkhetache	...	Karima
Abdelhamid Aktouche	...	Hamid
Alice Houri	...	Julia
Bouraouïa Marzouk	...	Souad
Cyril Favre	...	Serguei
Leila D'Issernio	...	Lilia
Abelkader Djeloulli	...	Kader
Bruno Lochet	...	Mario
Olivier Loustau	...	José
Sami Zitouni	...	Majid
Sabrina Ouazani	...	Olfa
Mohamed Benabdeslem	...	Riadh
Hatika Karaoui	...	Latifa

Storyline

At the port of Sète, Mr. Slimani, a tired 60-year-old, drags himself toward a shipyard job that has become more and more difficult to cope with as the years go by. He is a divorced father who forces himself to stay close to his family despite the schisms and tensions that are easily sparked off and that financial difficulties make even more intense. He is going through a delicate period in his life and, recently, everything seems to make him feel useless: a failure. He wants to escape from it all and set up his own restaurant. However, it appears to be an unreachable dream given his meager, irregular salary that is not anywhere near enough to supply what he needs to realize his ambition. But he can still dream and talk about it with his family in particular. A family that gradually gives its support to this project, which comes to symbolize the means to a better life. Thanks to its ingeniousness and hard work, this dream soon becomes a reality...or almost....

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Plot Keywords:

neighborhood | shipyard | butt slap | scrap metal | family dinner | 

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Taglines:

It takes will, courage and determination to realise a dream. But most of all it takes family

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Genres:

Drama

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Country:

France

Language:

French Arabic Russian

Release Date:

12 December 2007 (France)

Also Known As:

The Secret of the Grain

Filming Locations:

Chantier naval, Sète, Hérault, France

Box Office

Opening Weekend USA:

$9,864, 2 January 2009, Limited Release

Gross USA:

$86,356, 1 March 2009

Company Credits

Production Co:

Pathé Renn Productions, Hirsch, France 2 Cinéma

Technical Specs

Runtime:

151 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital DTS

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Shooting was supposed to start in the summer of 2005 but one of the leading actors was sick, which resulted in a major delay. Thus, filming actually started on 5 September 2005 and was still running by 16 January 2006. The set was on a boat in the port of Sète for at least six weeks from October to December 2006. Outside temperatures were very low, as opposed to what they should have been if schedule could have been held. This led the production to set up large tents near the boat with heating systems for the actors and extras to remain comfortable between takes.

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Quotes

Julia: [talking to Slimane about her husband] Is that a family man ?
Serguei: Never there for his kid.

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Connections

Featured in Maltin on Movies: Flipped (2010)

User Reviews

A major movie of our times

Abdellatif Kechiche did very well with his previous movie "L'Esquive". But here we have even better. The story is simple : I'd say it is mostly about dignity, sacrifice and family love. The acting is brilliant. Habib Boufares is perfect, the young Hafsia Herzi is astounding, especially for the end of the movie. The actors are mostly non-professional people but the script is very well written and the characters are well defined, so this "amateurism" does great and helps the audience's immersion. The cinematography is very special (but never disturbing), with a lot of very close close-ups. The camera is "natural" as with Casavettes, but not "drunk", it is not a pain to watch and you don't get sea sick. The whole movie reminded me the Italian neo-realism and also a little of Renoir. Some people mention Pialat. It's a quite long movie but you don't feel it while watching, you just realize it after.