An undocumented 23-year-old Guinean migrant living in France who won a prize at the Cannes Film Festival last year has been granted a work permit, enabling him to avoid deportation, his lawyer says.
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Abou Sangare won rave reviews as the lead actor in 2024 film L’Histoire de Souleymane (“Souleymane’s Story”) in which he played a food delivery cyclist in Paris who is preparing for an immigration interview.
He won the prize for best male performance in the secondary Un Certain Regard section at Cannes in a role that reprised many of his own personal experiences as an undocumented migrant living in France.
After making three unsuccessful requests for work visas and being subject to a deportation order, he succeeded this week in obtaining a one-year permit for the first time, his lawyer Claire Perinaud said.
“He will ask for renewals and will be able to move to longer-term visas at a later date,” she said.
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