In an evicted building in the City of Lights, Yi-En and Junior — who left China and the DRC behind — try to turn their squatted apartment into a home. One day, they’re joined by Hamzah, Yi-En’s Palestinian classmate, who carries his own sense of exile. The trio soon shares everything, from scarce belongings and jokes about the future to memories of the past. But while their odd family grows — a stranded cat here, a rescued fish there— their carefully constructed world grows vulnerable to outside forces, some much bigger than themselves. In this lively milieu, time, space and personal histories overlap, offering a political allegory on displacement and the meaning of home. One formed not through the language of social realism, but a cinema of warmth, visual wit and deadpan humour.
Paris Paris
a film by
“one of the year’s most empathetic and genuine films”
“one of the year’s most empathetic and genuine films”
Isabelle Tollenaere
Biography
Isabelle Tollenaere is a Belgian filmmaker making hybrid short and feature length films that are simultaneously poetic, political, and playful. Her practice focuses on the interplay between the rapid transformation of our physical world and the human experience of time and memory.Her films have been widely presented and awarded, at the Venice, Berlinale Forum (Caligari Film Prize 2020), IFFR (Fipresci award 2015), Centre Pompidou, Viennale, Visions Du Réel, FID Marseille, IDFA, CPH:DOX, IndieLisboa (Special Jury Prize 2020), a.o.. PARIS PARIS (feature, 2026) is her first scripted feature film.
Filmography
- THE FRUIT TREE / Isabelle Tollenaere / 2022 / 15 min. / experimental documentary
- VICTORIA / Isabelle Tollenaere, Liesbeth De Ceulaer, Sofie Benoot / 2020/ 71min. / documentary
- THE REMEMBERED FILM / Isabelle Tollenaere / 2018/ 18min. / documentary
- BATTLES / Isabelle Tollenaere / 2015 / 88min. / documentary
- VIVA PARADIS / Isabelle Tollenaere / 2011 / 17min. / documentary
