Life imitates art: Abou Sangaré, a Guinean man living in France who won a prize at the Cannes film festival for playing an undocumented migrant seeking to stay in the country, has been granted a work permit, enabling him to do the same.
Abou Sangaré won rave reviews as the lead actor in last year's film L'Histoire de Souleymane (Souleymane’s Story) in which he played a food delivery cyclist in Paris who is preparing for an immigration interview.
He won the prize for best male performance in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes, for a role that mirrored many of his own experiences as an undocumented migrant living in France.
After making three unsuccessful requests for work visas and being subject to a deportation order, he succeeded on Monday, 6 January in obtaining a one-year permit for the first time, according to his lawyer Claire Perinaud, having been offered a job as a mechanic.
"He will ask for renewals and will be able to move to longer-term visas at a later date," she said.
'I can't wait to start working in the garage'
Sangaré told the newspaper Libération that he intended to take up the mechanic's job, rather than pursue a career in film.
"There might be offers but I'm a mechanic, that's my trade," he said. "I can't wait to start working in the garage."
Despite having no acting experience, Sangaré was picked by director Boris Lojkine after he attended a casting call in his hometown of Amiens in northeast France, in between off-the-books jobs fixing cars and helping out at a local education charity.
The double life of Abou Sangaré, undocumented migrant and Cannes award winner
He left Guinea as a teenager, seeking to make enough money to pay for medical care for his mother, who has epilepsy.
His journey took him across the Sahara to Algeria and Libya, then across the Mediterranean in an inflatable boat to Italy and finally France.
"When we chose Sangaré to play the main role in the film, it was a big responsibility," Lojkine said in October, when his film was released in France. "It's only when he has his papers that I will [feel like I have] finished my film."
(with AFP)
