La Petite Dernière
A heart-warming coming-of-age drama about a young Muslim woman who goes to study in Paris and finds herself torn between her upbringing, her faith and her emerging identity. Winner of the Best Actress Award (Nadia Melliti) at Cannes.
Fatima is a good student, a devout Muslim and, as the youngest daughter of her French-Algerian family, ‘the small last one.’ She has a supportive mother, two affectionate (though sometimes critical) older sisters, and a father who’s remote, yet demanding. Like every seventeen-year-old, she struggles with reconciling the different parts of her life, but there’s an aspect of this that seems particularly impossible – which becomes evident the first time we see her uncomfortable interactions with her boyfriend.
We soon realize Fatima isn’t interested in boys but, because of her own misgivings (based on her faith and also her desire not to disrupt her family), she’s reluctant to discuss her sexuality with anyone. Forced to live a secret life, she criss-crosses Paris having secret dates with women she finds online. But when she meets Ji-Na, a young Korean woman, Fatima falls hopelessly in love, and can no longer accept the half-life she’s been living. (source: www.tiff.net)