Our Brothers

Rachid Bouchareb portrays police brutality in 1980s Paris in a tight, claustrophobic drama based on real events and the deaths of two young, innocent men.

Our Brothers takes place over a few days in early-December 1986. In the Latin Quarter of Paris, students march in protest against an education reform and the police crack down. On the same evening, two young Arab men end up at the morgue. One, Malik Oussekine, is on his way home from a jazz concert when the police swoop in and his death shocks an entire nation. The other, Abdel Benyahia, tries to stop a bar fight and is shot by a drunken cop off duty. The events are linked by the police who are appointed to investigate – and cover up – what happened. Bouchareb effectively weaves fiction and documentary into an intense, biting and deeply disturbing drama about police brutality and racism, which unfortunately has as much relevance today as it did in the 1980s.

• Camilla Larsson