The grain is couscous and the recipe is the secret in Abdellatif Kechiche's warm and expansive family drama, set in a community of first- and second-generation Maghrebi immigrants in Sète, a depressed port town in the south of France.

Grey-haired Tunisian immigrant Slimane is let go after 35 years, some of it under the table, as a dockworker. With his severance pay he dreams of turning an old boat into a restaurant with his ex-wife’s beloved fish couscous as the specialty. This doesn’t sit well with his girlfriend, who had hoped he would put the money into renovating her rundown hotel. Meanwhile he has to navigate the city bureaucracy and subtle prejudices that stand in his way. But the hotelkeeper’s determined daughter Rym steps up to make the project succeed for her cherished stepfather and organizes a go-for-broke dinner party to seduce potential investors and the city’s big shots.

Kechiche had already won the two top Césars with his previous film L'Esquive (SFFF -2005). La Graine et le mulet won four Césars including Best Picture & Best Director, and winner of the 2007 FIPRESCI and Special Jury prizes at the Venice Film Festival, La Graine et le mulet is a minutely detailed, sharply observed portrait of the immigrant generation contending with its French-born offspring and the dominant culture. The film is played out primarily with nonprofessional actors who have been encouraged to improvise in expressively voluble conversations. Hafsia Herzi (César winner for Best Promising Actress) is a standout as Rym, not just for her spirited harangues but for her resourcefulness when disaster strikes and desperate measures are called for.

Shown with Le Jour de gloire (Day of Glory) by Bruno Collet

Q&A follows the Saturday screening.