From documentary to fiction.
For my latest documentary, “Playmakers“ I met, followed, and filmed unaccompanied minors, mostly from Africa, to understand their journeys, the conditions of their exile, their dreams, their frustrations… I was struck by the strength with which they faced adult problems, even though they were just children. Through the stories of these young foreigners, I rediscovered what I had felt more than twenty years ago when I arrived in Europe.
Originally from Iran, I experienced cultural uprooting. Upon arriving in France, I was welcomed by a farming family living in the Normandy countryside. I had the opportunity to share their daily life and witness their struggle to live in harmony with nature, while also bearing the administrative burden of managing their farms—an additional job far removed from their chosen vocation. I discovered France through these humble people. This first home and this first experience in France left a deep mark on me. Since then, I have always wanted to make a film about rural life to show my adopted country as it first appeared to me.
It was a long wait, until this film project about young migrants came along and enriched my vision. The farm in a remote village, where migrants and locals could meet, seemed to me the perfect setting to blend these two worlds, to create a microcosm of society.
Because rural areas have strong family traditions, the family setting seemed the obvious choice. The decision to have young people of foreign origin living with a family in turmoil gives rise to contradictory and sometimes comical situations. The family context allows me to explore both the disconnect and the complicity between the protagonists.

Two worlds collide:
The migrants, orphaned of parents, family, and friends, are searching for a decent life in a world that distrusts them. The approaching age of majority looms large over them, and jeopardizes their future in the country they chose to seek refuge in.
A broken, fractured, and torn family, with a father losing his grip on reality, and children who no longer understand their mother, whom they deem incapable of managing her own life.
Whether it’s the young foreigners or the members of this French family, everyone feels abandoned and heartbroken. The clash of these two worlds begins on Corinne’s farm. A place of refuge for some, a place of tragedy for others. A sacred place for all. The farm is a rallying point for characters who are complete opposites and who should never have met.
Through his incantations, the griot summons Corinne back to their midst around the fire to celebrate the reunion of those she loves, who come together despite their differences and prejudices. Corinne arrives like a deliverance, like a messiah, who doesn’t moralize but observes the devastating effects of a consumer society on the human condition. She embodies the hope and warmth of humanity. The

Film
INTRUDERS explores the question of otherness and tells the story of the other across the globe. With humor and irony, the film observes the behavior of characters brought together in unusual and unexpected circumstances, against their will, burdened by deeply ingrained prejudices and stereotypes.
Here, cultures clash, and family and social worlds collide. Sheltered in this farmhouse, the young, naive, and well-meaning strangers confront a reality they never suspected: mistrust and suspicion, lies and deceit.
This French family, suffering and torn apart, embodies, across two generations, a different idea of ​​integration. While the father, from an isolated and austere rural background, withdrawn, somewhat uncouth, and full of prejudices against foreigners, behaves like an old colonialist, his children seem more open to the idea of ​​integration. But their apparent goodwill towards foreigners is actually tinged with condescension, which is often the source of many misunderstandings.
Today, these young Africans, like the protagonists of the film, aspire to change their destiny. They sometimes manage to leave their country of origin and follow the path laid out by the former colonists who came to exploit its resources. This exile, an act as voluntary as it is painful, carries hope because these young people express a strong desire for emancipation, diversity, and new relationships.
This film recounts the traditions and mindset of rural inhabitants, while also speaking about the world. And this is to show how, in our everyday lives, the stranger is always similar to us, while the similar is often foreign to us.
These are the reasons why I felt a strong and vital need to make this film. Because I have had the chance to know these two worlds, these two realities, because I was moved by them, because I want the world to open its eyes and look around it, because I hope that this film will provoke questions, create reflection.

The tone
In THE INTRUDERS, irony plays a crucial role in confronting what appears meaningless, even absurd. While the seriousness of the issues addressed easily lent itself to a political film, a thriller given the investigation, or a mystery film considering the strangeness of the unfolding events, I chose to adopt an ironic tone, highlighting the disconnect between the characters and their different worldviews. The dramatic aspects and the investigations into Corinne’s mysterious disappearance are deliberately relegated to the background, as the film is based on the clash of these different worlds and the resulting inconsistencies. The irony of fate, from which none of the characters seem to escape, is present throughout the film to better underscore the absurdity of life. For me, the film’s originality lies in its ironic storytelling.
For example, the tone is set from the very first images: a young man, wearing a boubou, is performing his Muslim prayers in a small Catholic church; The hygiene inspector, whose dehumanizing attitude contrasts sharply with the young migrants’ acts of hospitality, even though they themselves are out of place; Rodolphe, the frustrated father, preoccupied mainly with the fate of his shack, “the only territory he has left,” watches the family farm transform into an African territory during the initiation ceremony; while the young migrants fully appreciate Corinne’s maternal warmth, her own children criticize her, try to disarm her, and prevent her from acting; Moussa finds himself caught between his family traditions, the precariousness of his situation, and the image of the French father being presented to him; even Corinne is not spared this irony of fate. Her gentleness and kindness toward these young people (she helped Moussa return to France, among other things) are turned against her when she is arrested and taken into custody. As if her humanity were a crime…

The music also sets the tone. The spirit of Jean-Philippe Rameau’s opera-ballet “Les Indes Galantes” resonates with the film’s themes. I chose this opera because it reflects the ambiguous gaze that conquering Westerners cast upon the Other, the savage. It speaks of the violence of domination and the will for emancipation. The melody that can be heard at times in the film is that of the fourth act, “Les Sauvages,” which symbolizes the reconciliation between conquered peoples and the colonizing armies. Today, “Les Indes Galantes” carries a spirit of derision and irony that also suits the tone I wanted to give my film.
Corinne connects all the characters. She is both what unites them and what divides them. Her absence provokes these unexpected encounters and reveals the characters’ personalities and states of mind, influenced by their individual journeys: Rodolphe’s behavior when he questions the young people about his ex-wife reveals much about his past in Africa. Or again: Ibra’s confinement in the basement reminds him of his imprisonment by rebels in the desert. Even if he doesn’t want to speak about it explicitly, a small sign of empathy from Rodolphe is enough for him to express the full extent of the suffering of his exile.
Corinne’s absence acts as a catalyst. Each character can see a metaphor in it by projecting their own vision: a loving and protective mother to the young migrants, an irresponsible mother to Corinne’s children, a lost soul to her ex-husband, a lone wolf to her activist friends, an outlaw to the police.
The other characters must then continue to search, each in their own way, for their place in society, sometimes without succeeding.