Welcome

Welcome (2009) is a French drama you can watch online on iFILM, directed by Philippe Lioret and starring Vincent Lindon. The film brought international attention to the migrant community stranded in the port city of Calais.

Bilal is seventeen, a Kurdish boy from Iraq who has crossed most of Europe on foot to reach Calais. Thirty-two kilometers of the English Channel stand between him and London — and the girl he loves. With no money for smugglers and no legal way across, he decides to swim. Simon, a local swim coach whose marriage is quietly falling apart, starts training him. In France at the time, helping an undocumented migrant was a criminal offense — and Simon keeps going anyway.

Lioret doesn't shoot a polemic. He shoots two lonely men with an impossible goal between them, and the film's restraint is what makes it land. Stream Welcome (2009) on iFILM.