From two-time Palme d’Or winners Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne (TWO DAYS, ONE NIGHT) comes the story of 17-year-old Lokita and 12-year-old Tori (in remarkable debut performances from Pablo Schils and Joely Mbundu), two immigrants — from Benin and Cameroon, respectively — struggling for survival on the margins of society. The inseparable pair work as performers in a cheap trattoria, dealing drugs on the side for the restaurant’s abusive cook, while balancing the demands of an indifferent bureaucracy and a band of violent smugglers. When Lokita is held captive while working in a marijuana grow house, Tori scrambles to save his companion from their abusers, as events spiral out of control. Winner of the 75th Anniversary Prize at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, the latest humanist drama from the Dardenne Brothers is a heart-stopping thriller that casts an unflinching eye on the trials of the young and dispossessed.
“The best work in nearly a decade from the two-time Palme d’Or-winning Belgian brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne… Even in a drama whose every development is motivated by material need — and even with a devastating wallop of an ending — the Dardennes somehow push their way to an impossible state of grace.” —Justin Chang, Los Angeles Times “Like the best of their work, which this sobering return to form represents from its curious first shot to its furious last beat, its premise pulls tighter until even the simplest actions are endowed with breathless intensity.” —David Ehrlich, IndieWire
