Cannes-winning film about young African immigrants to play in our ‘Certified Welcoming’ city

Philadelphia proudly flaunts its “Certified Welcoming” city badge, a distinction endowed upon us by the nonprofit organization Welcoming America in February.

We have, for years, established programs and policies aimed at supporting immigrant communities. Immigrants make up roughly 14.3% of the city’s population, which is about 225,400 people among a population of more than 1.5 million.

It is only fitting that acclaimed Belgian filmmakers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne’s Cannes-winning film, Tori and Lokita, opened in Philly on Friday. The film plays through April 4 at PFS Bourse Theater.

The Belgian French drama is a story of immigration, with debutants Pablo Schils and Joely Mbundu playing the titular roles. It follows 17-year-old Lokita (Mbundu) and 12-year-old Tori (Schils), Benin and Cameroonian immigrants, trying to survive in a Belgian city by scraping whatever money they can muster as part-time singers and drug dealers.

“We’re very excited and honored to have our film distributed in the United States,” Jean-Pierre Dardenne said to The Inquirer. “Some of the themes...in the film are...shared themes that we have of immigration, and we hope that immigrants can be seen as friends and not as threats.”

Filmed in the Belgian regions of Liège and Condroz, Tori and Lokita takes a thrilling turn when the two friends, who pose as siblings throughout, are separated. Lokita ends up in an underground cannabis plantation, sending Tori on a wild-goose chase looking for her. His desperate pursuit leads to a series of gut-wrenching moments that make for an enthralling tale that’s in line with other projects helmed by the Dardenne brothers.

The duo started out making documentary and narrative films in the 1970s. And over the decades, they have won numerous awards, including the Palme d’Or — the highest honor at the Cannes Film Festival. Tori and Lokita just won the 75th Anniversary Prize at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival.

The brothers first explored the plight of Belgian immigrants in their 1996 drama La Promesse (The Promise), and Tori and Lokita, they said, was another way to chronicle the exploitation of immigrants in the European country.

“Through film, we can actually show [the characters] front and center, whereas in society, they’re often marginalized and unseen,” Luc Dardenne said. “Putting our light and focus on them was very important to us.”

Luc said he and Jean-Pierre researched immigration issues in Belgium and worked with local police to build a realistic “pot-growing plantation” for the second half of the film. In order to replicate the claustrophobia of such plantations, they built small, enclosed hallways and controlled the airflow for a “belly of the whale” sound effect.

“It was the first time we really paid attention and analyzed the pumps, suctions and the [actor’s] breathing noises,” Luc said. “The sounds were a part of the landscape, and when we mixed the film, the breathing was part of the aliveness [sic] of the set.”

With the film’s showing in Philadelphia, Jean-Pierre wants to shed light on the challenges faced by immigrants working in these plantations, and he hopes it will encourage lawmakers to provide more support for migrants.

“These characters are representative of a true phenomenon that is a new form of slavery,” Jean-Pierre said. “It’s the message we use to inspire solidarity.”

The two-time Palme d’Or winners will screen the film at the European parliament in Brussels on May 23, a move the brothers hope will encourage the nearly 500 attendees to establish a new law that allows children from Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and other regions to remain in Europe to receive their education.

“Tori and Lokita” runs through Tuesday at the Philadelphia Film Society Bourse Theater, located 400 Ranstead St. For showtimes and ticket info, visit filmadelphia.org.