Europe

World premiere: Berlinale 2022 / Forum

The bus stop “Europe” is located on an arterial road in a small French suburb. A few blocks, a brasserie, a kebab shop and a bus that shuttles between the hospital and the forest. This is where Zohra Hamadi (Rhim Ibrir) lives, her summer beginning with the end of a long history of illness. For the first time in her life, Zohra can walk upright, virtually pain-free. 

All that’s missing now is her husband Hocine, waiting in Algeria to finally get a family reunification visa and board the next plane to Zohra. But with the end of her treatment, Zohra loses her right of residence in France. She becomes – for her social environment as well as for the audience – a protagonist forced into invisibility, silenced, as she loses her job and her flat. Family and friends leave for their holidays, while she is left behind in an empty world. 

This empty world becomes a stage for Zohra, equipped with a handful of keys to the flats of others. She reclaims visibility by inventing her future, and not just one, but several, which she plays out in variations. And with this, Zohra’s struggle for her space in Europe begins.