When Algerian-born, French-raised Kamel returns to a housing project outside Paris after serving a “double sentence” of incarceration and deportation, his attempts to go straight are foiled by police interference and his lack of papers.
Ameur-Zaïmeche’s powerful self-produced debut as writer, director, and actor introduced a major new voice in French cinema, a filmmaker who fearlessly blends documentary detail and deceptively loose storytelling to express often subversive truths. In Wesh Wesh, his compassionate but non-indulgent view of life in the banlieue brings to light the tragic patterns set in motion by the injustices of the French legal system.