This Cannes award-winner by the renowned Dardenne brothers is a moving and typically uncompromising drama about two teenage migrants trying to build a new life. Tori and Lokita are living in Belgium after surviving a dangerous journey together from West Africa. Though they have a close relationship, they aren’t related but pretend to be siblings so that Lokita can secure her residence papers.
Desperate to pay the traffickers who smuggled them into Europe and send money to relatives, they supplement their wages from restaurant work by selling drugs. But Tori and Lokita – beautifully played by first-time actors Pablo Schils and Joely Mbundu – are ill-equipped to deal with an uncaring and predatory world, and events soon spin out of their control.
Like Ken Loach, the Dardennes have a distinguished track record of politically committed, social realist cinema focusing on the dispossessed. Their latest work is full of suspense and compassion – a humane and blistering indictment of social injustice
Engaging and heartbreaking in equal measureTime Out
Little White Lies
Bursts with humanityThe Wrap