UPCOMING WORK
Winner ‘Best International Documentary’ at Imagine this Women’s International Film Festival, New York 2026
Seventy-eight years old. Every morning, the same ritual.
Papa Omri lives in Marseille, France. A local icon, in every tourist guide, on French television, even in a soap opera. His cart now displayed in a museum. And yet, every day, this man wakes before dawn to survive, selling cans of soda for one euro. He arrived in France in 1969, hidden in a train, no ticket. He helped build the Marseille subway. He worked hard, his whole life. Then illness came. And when retirement arrived, barely enough to live on. 670 euros a month. Rent, gas, electricity, insurance, cigarettes. Nothing left.
Behind him: an entire generation of French retirees forced back to work. Nearly 2 million people over 60 live below the poverty line. 541,000 work just to get by.
Does the French dream still exist for them? Was it ever?
France turned him into a postcard. She forgot to pay him a decent retirement.
Written & directed by: Monia Kashmire
DP: James Symmonds
Editor: Sam Groesbeek
Color grading: Remi Lindenhovius
Sound: Arno Willemstein