Adieu Gary (2009)
Directed by Nassim Amaouche

Film Synopsis

Samir returns to his hometown in the Ardèche after completing a lengthy stretch in prison for trafficking.  The town has practically become a wasteland after the closure of a large factory where Samir's father Francis once worked.  Most of the population are of North African origin and now face the grimmest of futures, without work or hope.  The youngsters don't even bother looking for jobs now - most survive by peddling drugs or resorting to petty crime.  What used to be a factory is now a community centre where the town's dwindling inhabitants congregate and try to help each other out.  Those who are able to leave this godforsaken place have long departed.  Those who remain do so because there is no alternative.

A widower, Francis spends his days scrupulously maintaining the machine he assiduously looked after when he was in paid work.  It has become his sole passion in life, and even though it serves no purpose he cannot give it up.  His only other distraction is afforded by a neighbour Maria, with whom he enjoys a discrete relationship.  Maria's husband left her some years ago.  Now she lives alone with her son José, a withdrawn child who is convinced that his father is Gary Cooper.  Through his brother Icham, Samir manages to get a job in a supermarket, but the work does not suit him at all and he soon gives it up.  Nothing about the town appeals to Samir now.  It is like something that has died and is slowly decaying, a no man's land where the only thing that flourishes is a growing sense of hopelessness...