Free Men

1942, Paris under occupation. Younes, an Algerian immigrant, makes his living on the black market. When the police catch him he makes a deal to get out: he will go to the Paris Mosque and report on what happens there. At the mosque he meets a Jewish singer and an unexpected friendship forms between them. After a while Younes changes sides. Ismaël Ferroukhi's film rests on the account that the Paris Mosque and its rector Si Kaddour Benghabrit helped Jews during the war by giving them false papers. That account is disputed among historians: the mosque's archives have never been opened, and Benghabrit is known to have had dealings with the occupation authorities in the same period. Tahar Rahim plays Younes and Michael Lonsdale plays Benghabrit.