Europe bangs on Africa's door in migration movie

ABIDJAN, Jan 25 (Reuters) Arriving on the shores of the continent they hope will offer them a brighter future, desperate illegal migrants are shot at by border guards, then locked in a transit centre to await deportation.

It is a story all too familiar to African cinema audiences, except in a new film set in 2033 the impoverished migrants are not poor Africans but Europeans, fleeing their crumbling continent after it is devastated by war.

''Africa Paradis'', which will feature in the pan-African Fespaco film festival in Burkina Faso next month and screen in some French cinemas, uses a simple role reversal to challenge ideas and attitudes to immigration.

Turning the present reality on its head, the film sees European economic immigrants take up jobs as drivers or maids and occupy downmarket city suburbs while immigration stirs hot debate in the parliament of the mighty United States of Africa.

Writer and producer Sylvestre Amoussou from Benin who plays pro-immigration parliament member Modibo Koudossou, says his own experiences as an immigrant in France prompted him to make the thought-provoking film.

''Having lived in France for many years, I realised to what extent integration in a foreign country, even a friendly one, can be difficult,'' he said in comments on www.africine.org.

''I often wondered if those who welcomed us were conscious of the difficulties we face,'' he said.

SEEKING ACCEPTANCE Africa Paradis uses a healthy dose of humour to challenge perceptions and attitudes to immigration, making it more than a just a gratuitous swipe at ''fortress Europe''. The plot centres around one young couple's clandestine journey into Africa.

Olivier, an unemployed engineer, escapes from the transit centre, dodging the police until he steals identity papers from the corpse of another white man run over by a car. Poor and jobless, he remains stuck on the fringes of society.

His partner Pauline however, quickly integrates after she is allowed to stay and finds work as a maid in Koudossou's home while still searching for Olivier. Their contrasting circumstances lead the couple along very different paths.

Amoussou, who part-funded the 2 million euro film himself and raised the rest of the cash from the African diaspora, told Reuters the unconventional script had been largely rejected by the mainstream cinema industry in France.

''It isn't what they expect from Africans in cinema. They expect misery but not a film about reflection, but this is a film about tolerance and living together,'' he said, adding that some film companies would only work with mainstream producers.

''They want us to do films about African villages and poverty,'' he said, adding a number of independent cinemas in France had agreed to show it from late next month.

The film debuted at the cinema at Hotel Ivoire in Ivory Coast, a vast 750-bedroom complex whose now empty swimming pool and defunct ice rink recall an era when the West African state saw the economic boom aspired to in the film.

But poverty and unemployment have risen sharply here since a brief 2002-03 civil war spawned a complex political crisis that international peace efforts have so far failed to resolve.

Pharmacology student Nomen Adoumel, 20, one of a handful of people to occupy the red velvet seats in the oft-empty cinema said the film was as thought-provoking for Africans as for Europeans with its novel perspective on immigration issues.

''I didn't like that the Africans were playing the same game (in their treatment of immigrants),'' he said.

''I would have liked to see them show a bit more love and be a bit more positive,'' he said.

But for ticket seller Georgette Adou, the idea of a united, prosperous Africa was too far-fetched.

''It is a dream that will never happen,'' she said.

Reuters PB DB0914