Head over heels, eight-year-old Fahim (Assad Ahmed) is forced to flee his home country Bangladesh. While his mother and siblings remain behind, Fahim and his father Nura (Mizanur Rahaman) make the arduous journey to France all alone to apply for asylum. As they arrive in Paris, they are struggling to find a place to live while Nura is looking for a job – and so the longed-for residence permit quickly seems out of reach. Thanks to his extraordinary talent for chess, Fahim finds a supporter and true friend in Sylvain (Gérard Depardieu) - one of the best chess coaches in France - while Nura slips into illegality and has to go into hiding. Therefore, when his father is threatened with expulsion just before the French chess championship, Fahim has only one goal: he must win the championship in Marseille and become French champion so that their journey will not have been in vain.
In FAHIM, Director Pierre François Martin-Laval (GASTON LAGAFFE, ESSAYE-MOI) tells the incredible true story of a boy who puts everything on the line for his dream. Alone with his father in a foreign country, without knowing its culture and language, Fahim is stranded in France as an illegal immigrant – and therefore, the fact that he manages to become French chess champion is indeed bordering on a miracle. Appearing alongside Gérard Depardieu (CYRANO DE BERGERAC) and Isabelle Nanty (AMÉLIE), young amateur actor Assad Ahmed is equally impressive. Like the real Fahim Mohammad, he comes from Bangladesh and only learned the French language during filming.
