Athena
ATHENA is the name of a crime-ridden housing project outside of Paris, not coincidentally suggesting the filmmaker's Greek tragedy theme. When a young Muslim boy is murdered by men in police uniforms, the video of the event goes viral and it takes no time for one of the boy's older brothers, teenage Karim (Sami Slimane), to lead his crew to the local police station for retaliation. They vandalize the place and grab guns, body armor, and police vans, then head home to turn their high-rise project into an impenetrable fortress. The situation escalates when they capture a hapless young police officer named Jerome (Anthony Bajon) and threaten to kill him if the department doesn't give them the names of the child's murderers. The insurgents can't match the firepower of the police so it feels inevitable from the start that the noble-but-childish stand will end in disaster. Karim's older brother Abdel (Dali Benssalah) is a French soldier who served in Mali who still believes in law and order and only wants to calm things down. Will he be able to stop the violence from escalating?
Starring
Dali Benssalah, Alexis Manenti, Anthony Bajon
Director
Romain Gavras