About the film

For Kader Traoré of the Burkinabè online media outlet LeFaso.net, the selection of this documentary at the 2011 Pan-African Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou highlights the presence of a “new wave of African cinema.” He believes that Paris mon paradis portrays the real living conditions of immigrants in France.

Journalist Stéphanie Trouillard of SlateAfrique notes that, through this documentary, Éléonore Yaméogo addresses a message to her continent, Africa. She seeks to shatter the “myth of the European El Dorado,” where, in reality, many Africans merely struggle to survive.

Journalist and film critic Claire Diao acknowledges on the website africine.org that “the face-to-face testimonies (in this film) strike the viewer with their authenticity and emotion.” She further explains that the first Burkinabè woman to benefit from the French government’s so-called “selective immigration” policy offers, as an African, a fresh perspective “on the widening gap between the dreams of some and the disenchantment of others.”

Journalist Floriane Denis explains that the film, screened at the Pan-African Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou (FESPACO), sparked strong reactions, and she quotes the director as saying: “I am not saying that one should not leave, no […] but I am saying that one must prepare the journey very, very carefully and know what to expect.

According to the Human Rights League, the film, primarily intended for African audiences, aims to show potential migrants that, for most of them, Paris will be a nightmare. For Western viewers, the documentary offers an “African взгляд without complacency or hostility toward a French society that is far from welcoming.”