The Marchers
| The Marchers | |
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| Directed by | Nabil Ben Yadir |
| Produced by |
Diana Elbaum Benoit Roland Hugo Sélignac |
| Written by | Nabil Ben Yadir Nadia Lakhdar Ahmed Ahmidi |
| Starring |
Jamel Debbouze Olivier Gourmet Lubna Azabal Hafsia Herzi |
| Cinematography | Danny Elsen |
| Edited by | Damien Keyeux |
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Production
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| Distributed by | EuropaCorp. Distribution (France) |
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Release date
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Running time
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120 minutes |
| Country | France Belgium |
| Language | French Arabic |
| Budget | $11 million |
| Box office | $1.3 million |
The Marchers (French: La Marche) is a 2013 French comedy-drama film by Nabil Ben Yadir. It is loosely based on the events surrounding the 1983 March for Equality and Against Racism.
The film's release in November 2013 coincided with the 30th anniversary of the march.
In 1983 France, teenaged Mohamed (Jallab) is shot by a policeman, but survives. Rejecting his friends' proposal of violent retribution, he proposes political action inspired by Gandhi and Martin Luther King. With two friends, and support from Dubois (Gourmet), the priest of Minguettes (Lyon), they embark on a non-violent March for Equality and Against Racism between Marseille and Paris.
Answering a question about taking "liberties with the narration when telling a true story", director and co-writer Ben Yadir said: "You focus on the great History: the towns, the march of the torches, the return to Lyon, the death of Habib Grimzi, all these images that pull you back to reality... But at the start in Marseilles, there was a group of 32, and we obviously could not make a movie with 32 characters. We thus created 10 characters around which we built short stories."
The Marchers had theatrical showings in North America as part of the Rendez-vous with French Cinema series 2014 program.
Boyd van Hoeij of The Hollywood Reporter said "[t]he film’s message of equality is loud and sincere but Yadir, here directing his second feature, struggles to maintain a workable entente between the downbeat story [...] with misplaced-feeling broad humor."
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