One of the standouts at the recent Alliance Française French Film Festival, this tightly focused film, directed and co-written by Boris Lojkine, is a riveting portrait of a young man clinging to hope.

Abou Sangaré in The Story of Souleymane. Photo © Palace Films

His buddies like to call him “Souleymane of Paris”, but in truth this twentysomething migrant from West Africa is hanging on to the lowest rung of the city. Unable to work because he has no official immigration status, Souleymane (played by Abou Sangaré) gets by as a bicycle courier, illegally renting a delivery app account from another rider – for which he pays through the nose. He rides like someone whose life is governed by some fast-ticking clock – which, in many ways, it is. Not only does he have to maximise deliveries in order to make his ‘rent’ (sometimes he has to dart across town to thwart the delivery app’s authentication checks), he’s also having to pay a coach, Barry (Alpha Oumar Sow), to help him through a fateful interview with French immigration authorities in just 48 hours’ time.

But Souleymane isn’t...