Suffering in Sanctuary: Jacques Audiard's Dheepan

This Palme d'Or–winning film tells the story of three Sri Lankan refugees – a man, woman and child – who masquerade as a family in the hopes of finding asylum in France. Despite the distance and difficulties they've faced, however, they seem to have merely replaced civil war with local gangland war. Anthony Carew unpacks the directorial intentions, stylistic decisions and political undercurrents that have come together in the master work that is Dheepan.

Additional keywords: Cannes, world cinema, refugee, asylum saeeker, assimilation.