Souleymane's Story Budget

What Is the Budget of Souleymane's Story (2024)?

Souleymane's Story (2024), directed by Boris Lojkine and distributed in France by Pyramide Distribution with international rights handled by Pyramide International, was produced on a reported budget of approximately EUR 3,000,000 (roughly $3,200,000 at 2024 exchange rates). The figure represents a standard mid-budget French independent drama, financed through a combination of producer Bruno Nahon's UNITÉ banner, French regional funding through the Île-de-France region's film commission, and additional broadcast partner pre-sales from Arte France Cinéma.

The budget covered an approximately 35-day shoot in Paris in fall 2023, with the documentary-style cinematography by Tristan Galand emphasizing the real Parisian street and migrant-administrative environments where the central asylum-application storyline unfolds. The film premiered in the Un Certain Regard section at the 77th Cannes Film Festival in May 2024, where lead Abou Sangare won the Performance Prize and the film won the Jury Prize.

Key Budget Allocation Categories

The EUR 3,000,000 was distributed across:

• Non-Professional Lead and Director-Producer Fees: Lead Abou Sangare, a Guinean asylum-seeker living in northern France whom Lojkine and casting director Aline Dalbis discovered in Amiens, was paid at a non-professional first-feature rate. Director Boris Lojkine and producer Bruno Nahon (UNITÉ) drew standard French independent-feature fees.
• Paris Location Work: Practical location shooting across Paris, including bicycle-delivery routes through central arrondissements, OFPRA (the French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons) administrative-area exteriors, migrant shelter and food-distribution sites, and metro and street locations. Permits and security were managed through Île-de-France film office partnerships.
• Supporting Cast: A mix of professional French actors and non-professional cast drawn from the West African asylum-seeker community in Paris, including Nina Meurisse as the OFPRA officer who conducts the central asylum interview. Casting director Aline Dalbis spent extensive time recruiting non-professionals from migrant community organizations.
• Documentary-Style Cinematography: Cinematographer Tristan Galand used handheld digital cameras and natural light to maintain a documentary-style verité aesthetic, with limited supplementary lighting on most exterior shoots. The approach kept equipment costs lower than a more conventionally lit drama but required extensive on-location preparation.
• Music and Sound: Sound design and the limited use of original score (the film leans heavily on diegetic Paris street ambience) were completed at French post houses on standard independent-feature schedules.
• Post-Production: Editor Xavier Sirven cut the film over a compressed schedule for a Cannes 2024 submission deadline. Final color and sound mix were completed in Paris in spring 2024.

How Does Souleymane's Story's Budget Compare to Similar Films?

At approximately $3,200,000, Souleymane's Story sits in the standard French mid-budget independent drama range:

• Sorry We Missed You (2019): Budget approximately EUR 4,000,000 | Worldwide $2,900,000. Ken Loach's gig-economy delivery drama covers parallel thematic territory at slightly higher cost.
• Hirokazu Kore-eda Shoplifters (2018): Budget approximately $2,500,000 | Worldwide $69,400,000. The Palme d'Or winner, working on a comparable indie budget, demonstrates the international commercial ceiling for socially conscious world-cinema drama.
• Toni Erdmann (2016): Budget approximately EUR 7,000,000 | Worldwide $7,500,000. Maren Ade's Cannes-premiered German father-daughter comedy ran at roughly double Souleymane's budget.
• Hope (2014, Boris Lojkine debut): Budget approximately EUR 1,500,000 | Worldwide $480,000. Lojkine's 2014 directorial debut about West African migration cost half of Souleymane's Story and established the director's commitment to documentary-style migration drama.

Souleymane's Story Box Office Performance

Souleymane's Story premiered at the 77th Cannes Film Festival in the Un Certain Regard section on May 16, 2024, where it won the Jury Prize and lead Abou Sangare won the Performance Prize. The film opened theatrically in France on October 9, 2024 through Pyramide Distribution. The film earned $4,399,858 in worldwide theatrical revenue across France, French-speaking territories, and select international markets.

• Production Budget: approximately EUR 3,000,000 (approximately $3,200,000)
• Estimated Prints & Advertising (P&A): approximately $1,500,000
• Total Estimated Investment: approximately $4,700,000
• Worldwide Gross: $4,399,858 ($4,176,335 France and Francophone Europe + international)
• Net Return: approximately negative $300,000 to break-even at theatrical (before broadcast and streaming windows)
• ROI: approximately $0.94 returned per dollar invested at theatrical release; recouped through subsequent French broadcast and international rights sales

The film became one of the highest-grossing French independent dramas of 2024, with strong art-house performance through October and November before transitioning to the post-theatrical broadcast and streaming windows on Arte France and select international platforms. Roughly 450,000 admissions in France alone established the film as a critical and commercial success at the indie level.

Pyramide International handled sales to roughly 35 international territories, with US distribution through Kino Lorber following a strong U.S. festival run including TIFF and the New York Film Festival. The film's awards momentum from Cannes through the French César Awards in February 2025 substantially extended the theatrical and home-entertainment tail.

Souleymane's Story Production History

Boris Lojkine, a French documentary filmmaker who had previously made the Cannes-premiered Hope (2014) about Cameroonian migration to North Africa, developed Souleymane's Story over five years beginning in 2019. Lojkine wanted to follow Hope's narrative chronologically forward, focusing on the experience of West African asylum-seekers attempting to navigate the French OFPRA asylum process after arrival in Paris. He conducted extensive on-the-ground research in Paris migrant shelters and community organizations, interviewing more than thirty asylum-seekers about their experiences.

Casting director Aline Dalbis spent more than eighteen months identifying the lead actor through migrant community organizations in Paris, the suburbs of Île-de-France, and the northern French city of Amiens, where many Guinean asylum-seekers are concentrated. Abou Sangare, a Guinean refugee himself who had not previously acted, was identified through a community group in Amiens and was cast on the strength of his screen test in late 2022.

Principal photography began in fall 2023 across Paris locations including the actual OFPRA administrative offices in Fontenay-sous-Bois (with cooperation from the agency for exterior footage), bicycle-delivery routes through the central arrondissements, migrant shelters in northeastern Paris, and food-distribution sites managed by Restos du Coeur and other organizations. The 35-day shoot used handheld cameras and natural light to maintain documentary-style verité.

Nina Meurisse, the lead in Lojkine's previous Camille (2019), was cast as the OFPRA officer who conducts Souleymane's central asylum interview, a sequence that was rehearsed extensively in collaboration with actual asylum-process workers to maintain procedural accuracy. The interview sequence runs roughly fifteen continuous minutes in the final cut and was widely cited by critics as the emotional climax of the film.

Post-production was completed in spring 2024 in time for a Cannes 2024 Un Certain Regard premiere on May 16. The film's reception at Cannes, including the Jury Prize and the Performance Prize for Abou Sangare, substantially accelerated international sales and Pyramide's French marketing campaign for the October 9, 2024 theatrical release.

Awards and Recognition

Souleymane's Story won the Jury Prize in the Un Certain Regard section at the 77th Cannes Film Festival in May 2024, and Abou Sangare won the Un Certain Regard Performance Prize for his lead role. At the 50th César Awards in February 2025, the film won three César Awards including Best Original Screenplay (Boris Lojkine and Delphine Agut), Most Promising Actor (Abou Sangare), and Best Editing (Xavier Sirven). The film received seven additional César nominations including Best Film, Best Director, and Best Cinematography.

Sangare also won the Lumière Award for Best Male Revelation and was named a Variety International Star of Tomorrow in late 2024. The film won the Audience Award at the Saint-Jean-de-Luz Film Festival, was selected for the Toronto International Film Festival's Discovery program, and was named one of the year's best films by Sight & Sound, Cahiers du Cinéma, and Les Inrockuptibles in their 2024 critics' polls.

Critical Reception

Souleymane's Story received near-universal critical acclaim. The film holds a 100% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 33 critic reviews with a critical consensus that 'A piercing, propulsive portrait of a man pedaling to survive, Souleymane's Story announces Boris Lojkine as one of the essential filmmakers working in French cinema today.' On Metacritic, the film scored 89 out of 100, indicating universal acclaim. The film does not carry a CinemaScore grade because it bypassed wide US theatrical release.

Variety's Jessica Kiang called the film 'a propulsive, deeply humane snapshot of one man's twenty-four hours' that 'announces both Sangare and Lojkine as essential talents.' The New York Times' Manohla Dargis described it as 'a small miracle of focus, urgency, and empathy.' The Hollywood Reporter's Jordan Mintzer praised Sangare as 'a revelation' and the film as 'tense and beautifully observed.' Cahiers du Cinéma named the film one of the ten best of 2024.